Some adult students, especially those returning to the classroom after years in the workforce, often schedule classes around other commitments such as full-time jobs and family responsibilities.  For many of these students, having already “put in a full day,” a classroom can have a soporific effect.

       Adding movement as a tool for instruction engages the student and increases the brain’s ability to obtain and retain information.  Movement can be incorporated into mnemonics devices or used independently, through such activities as brain-breaks.

       Recent studies have suggested that “walking briskly 30-40 minutes a day three times a week helped to "regrow" the structures of the brain linked to cognitive decline in older adults,” (Wilson, 2014).  While this tool does not mean that 30-40 minutes of exercise can be incorporated into the adult math classroom or language arts classroom, the benefits of movement as a form of exercise is still important. 

       The brain-break allows for “a more efficient, effective learner… who is now ready for more content.  But it will fade…  and that is about being a facilitator of learning and a designer of the learning environment versus just a teacher…” (Kuczala, 2015).

       Movement  is “an effective cognitive strategy to (1) strengthen learning, (2) improve memory and retrieval, and (3) enhance learner motivation and morale (Jensen, 2005).