Project as of February 7

-Target Audience: My target audiences are parents and teachers. My goal is to make information about how movement can enhance cognitive development, available to those who could integrate it into their children’s lives.

-My Research Thus Far: So far I have mostly worked on “Pros” to see if it was a legitimate project idea. I will begin this week to research “Cons” in order to develop a more “well-rounded” project.

-What This Project is: The point of this project is not to disprove that the arts can improve cognitive development. I am also not presenting this topic as an “end-all” solution to cognitive development in children. I am simply providing information on how movement through sport, game, and creative dance can improve cognitive development in children. The reason that I chose to approach these movement experiences in terms of game, sport, and creative dance is so that the children will have experiences to improve problem-solving, critical thinking, and reasoning skills by experiencing multiple variables (other players, different “Basic Six” skills being developed, conditions of the game/sport/environment) Learning to develop these problem solving skills is just one way that movement experiences can be used to develop cognitive skills.

-Project Breakdown: I decided to write a paper about the information that I collected about movement and cognition. After my paper is finished I planned to make pamphlets and distribute them to schools in the surrounding area. The reason that I was going to use pamphlets is because I saw them as a compact way to give basic information about why using developed movement patterns can improve cognitive functioning. I thought that seeing who responds to the pamphlets will help me to see how much perspective interest I have. By evaluating the level of interest, I will be able to see if putting together a website with videos of activities, links to articles, and suggestions about how to get the most “well-rounded” movement in the least about of time will be enough, or if I should put on a “master class” for parents and teachers. If anyone has ideas about how to better promote this project while providing information (other than pamphlets) I would love to hear them!

Goals For Next Week
-Collect more articles (positive and negative)
-Start to decide the specific topics that I will be focusing on for my paper.
-Brainstorm ideas about how to better promote my project.