A creative journey toward reducing student anxiety while reviewing

Mrs. Breanna Calkins (North Hagerstown High School, MD).

Ms. Kaleea Korunka (William & Mary Class of 2025)

Mrs. Bree Calkins

Ms. Kaleea Korunka

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Currently teaches Biology, Honors Chemistry and Forensic Science at North Hagerstown High School in Washington County, MD. This is her 6th year of teaching with previous experience as a DNA Analyst in Crime Labs across the country.

Currently a first year Biology Major at William and Mary University in Williamsburg, VA. Graduated with an IB Diploma from Green Run Collegiate in Virginia Beach last year with an Extended Essay in Biology.

Agenda

1. The health benefits associated with coloring

2. The connection between color and the recall of information

3. The creative journey taken by a teacher and student to bring these benefits together for future Biology students

4. Data from mini-studies conducted at North Hagerstown High School in the Biology Department

5. Feedback received from students who used the coloring book

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Health benefits associated with coloring

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Art Therapy & Cancer

2006 Study: researchers found that mindfulness art therapy for women with cancer helped to significantly decrease the symptoms of physical and emotional distress during their treatment.

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Participants demonstrated a “significant decrease in symptoms of distress and significant improvements in key aspects of health-related quality of life” (Monti, 2006)

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Art Therapy: Undergrads

2005 Study: researchers evaluated the effectiveness of coloring a complex geometric design, like a mandala, on reducing anxiety with a group of undergraduate students.

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The results showed a decrease in anxiety levels for the students and suggested the practice created a sort of meditative state that is beneficial for reducing anxiety. (Curry, 2005)

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Stress Headaches in Adolescent Females

• Researched mindfulness sessions with art therapy for adolescent girls suffering from headaches.
• Quantitative and qualitative outcomes, including pre- and post-intervention artwork.
• The adolescents were engaged in the sessions and they embraced the idea of an art-based, mindfulness approach to help with their headaches.
• The findings supported a strong, positive impact of the intervention on both reducing stress and headaches.

(Bjorling, Stevens & Singh, 2019)

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The connection between color and the recall of information

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Effect on Attention

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• Farley and Grant were among the earliest who came out with a theory suggesting that colours have a greater effect on attention
• They compared colour and non-colour multimedia presentations on memory performance
• It was reported that the coloured multimedia presentation resulted in better attention than the non-coloured presentation

(Farley & Grant 1976)

Working Memory & Visual Attention

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• Study on working memory and visual attention
• Participants asked to identify whether the color or the shape of the two objects that were presented were the same
• Result: response times were faster in identifying the differences in colors compared to differences in the shapes of the objects in both experimental conditions
• This finding can be interpreted to show that colours have a better and greater ability to capture attention than other variables.

(MacKay & Ahmetzanov, 2005)

1st Experiment

2nd Experiment

Increase Memory Performance

• Used visual geometrical shapes with various colors
• The participants were asked to memorize both the colours and shape of the items
• Results: participants performed better in recognizing the color of the items than the shapes
• Confirmed previous studies where color had a stronger attention effect than the shape
• This suggests that, colors can produce a higher level of attention and is effective to increase memory performance

(Pan, 2010)

The creative journey for

“Color me, Bio!”

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Mini-studies at North Hagerstown High School

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Honors Chemistry (Grade 10)

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Copyright Breanna Calkins 2021

• Students provided pre-assessment
• Instructional activity was to color in this page and interact with the text (annotate/highlight/ask questions)
• Note: Instructor was absent that day
• Students then provided the same pre-assessment to evaluate growth and scores were compared

Honors Chem (Grade 10)

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The t-value is 3.61427.

The p-value is .000416.

The result is significant at p < .05.

The t-test is a statistical test that compares the mean and standard deviation of two samples to see if there is a significant difference between them.

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A "significant difference" means that the results that are seen are most likely not due to chance or sampling error.

The t-value represents how many standard units the means of the two groups are apart. The larger the t-value, the more likely the two samples are significantly different from each other.

The smaller the p-value, the stronger the evidence that the results are significant (not due to chance).

In biology, a p-value of less than 0.05 is considered significant. A p-value greater than 0.05 is considered non-significant.

Biologyforlife.com

IB Biology Year 1 and 2

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• Two classes of juniors and two classes of seniors participated in study - each took pre-assessment, learned content, reviewed then took same post-assessment
• One class of each grade level used coloring sheet to review prior to the post-assessment

Limitations:

• Two different teachers
• Absences at school are high
• Some data points missing from students
• Had to drop data of students with missing scores
• Different number of students in each sample group
• Number of students sampled is low
• One teacher gave same pre and post test, other gave different tests - but on same content objectives

IB Biology Year 1

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Coloring Page vs. Non

The t-value is 0.51261.

The p-value is .306556.

The result is not significant at p < .05.

Limitations:

• Absences at school are high
• Some data points missing from students
• Had to drop data of students with missing scores
• Different number of students in each sample group
• Number of students sampled is low
• One teacher gave same pre and post test, other gave different tests - but on same content objectives

IB Biology Year 2

Coloring Page vs. Non

The t-value is -1.59005.

The p-value is .061154.

The result is not significant at p < .05.

The t-value is -5.97641. The p-value is < .00001. The result is significant at p < .05.

The t-value is -12.53327. The p-value is < .00001. The result is significant at p < .05.

Feedback received from students who have used the coloring book

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“The coloring kind of makes you focus on it, so it’s like, embedded into your memory,”

- B. Trice (grade 9)

“Amazing idea.... she enjoyed learning biology and studying was even easier to focus when she was able to color while focusing on it!”

-S. Saltisiak (Parent)

“I feel that I scored better on my assessment because of using the coloring page.”

-A. Cox (grade 12)

“I love the coloring book! It’s such a great way for me to study biology and label different structures that I needed for my IB biology exam but also relax.”

- A. Lee (grade 12)

“Interacting with the coloring page helped me review for the assessment as I feel I have a deeper understanding on the concept as it is easier for me to recite/ memorize.”

-M. Stull (Grade 12)

“I did feel that interacting with the coloring page helped me review for the assessment.”

-J. Martis (Grade 12)

“I think I would have probably done worse if I did not use the coloring page”

-K. Mehta (Grade 12)

References

• Monti DA, Peterson C, Kunkel EJ, Hauck WW, Pequignot E, Rhodes L, Brainard GC. A randomized, controlled trial of mindfulness-based art therapy (MBAT) for women with cancer. Psychooncology. 2006 May;15(5):363-73. doi: 10.1002/pon.988.
• Curry, N., Kasser, T. Can Coloring Mandalas Reduce Anxiety? Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 22(2) pp. 81-85. 2005. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ688443.pdf
• Björling, Elin A., et al. “Participatory Pilot of an Art-Based Mindfulness Intervention for Adolescent Girls with Headache.” Art Therapy, vol. 36, no. 2, 2019, pp. 86–92., https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2019.1609325.
• Farley FH, Grant AP. Arousal and cognition: Memory for color versus black and white multimedia presentation. J Psychol. 1976;94(1):147–150.
• MacKay DG, Ahmetzanov MV. Emotion, memory, and attention in the taboo Stroop paradigm. Psychol Sci. 2005 Jan;16(1):25-32. doi: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.00776.x. PMID: 15660848.
• Pan Y. Attentional capture by working memory contents. Can J Exp Psychol. 2010 Jun;64(2):124-8. doi: 10.1037/a0019109. PMID: 20565178.
• Dzulkifli, Mariam Adawiah, and Muhammad Faiz Mustafar. “The influence of colour on memory performance: a review.” The Malaysian journal of medical sciences : MJMS vol. 20,2 (2013): 3-9.

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All images besides coloring book pages were found using images.google.com.

Thanks!

Questions &

Ideas 4 U!

@MrsCalkinsBio

Follow me as I post creative classroom activities that I do with my own students!

• Coloring reviews
• Drawing a recap of learning picture
• Building models with play-doh or cake
• Create dance moves that pertain to content
• Create theatre productions that revolve around science topics
• Create a booklet of vocab drawings