How to Samba Your Way to Higher Grades

Instructors and parents across the United States alike delve into the same question all the time: what are some factors that can help students raise their grades and test scores? Signing the pupils up for enrichment courses is one thing, but how about encouraging them to participate in athletics or say, dancing? According to Ginny Buccelli, "[m]ovement potentially increases brain function, and that improves concentration levels" ("Can Exercise Improve Grades?", 2007).

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• An equal number of boys and girls (for partnering purposes)
• Sample national standardized test questions
• Evaluation sheet

1. Choose about 10 students for this experiment, five girls and five boys. Set aside half of those pupils for the "non-fitness" category and partner up the other half for ballroom dancing (all students must have a general idea of what samba or salsa is).

2. Have students in the "dance" section perform the samba and/or salsa for a duration of one hour while the other pupils simply observe. Be sure to complement this session with water and additional, advanced steps to test for memorization skills.

3. In the end, introduce a surprise test for all 10 students with sample questions taken from past national standardized exams. Perform this session after another hour of rest for the dance crew.

4. Use the evaluation sheet to jot down test scores after correcting each and every exam. Determine the group with the highest score. Most likely, that team would be the ballroom dancing one!

Tips & Warnings

• Be dynamic and patient with students while instructing them in the experiment.

Resources

• Article on exercise and grades