Dance? I Can’t Dance! Developing an Understanding of Mental Models Through Line Dancing

Students sometimes struggle with abstract topics such as mental models. Line dancing is a kinesthetic activity that can enable students to learn in multiple ways beyond mere cognitive processes. By involving their bodies, rather than just their minds, learners can approach this learning in multiple ways. Obviously, there is a somatic component to a physical activity. In addition, when physical performance is required in an environment where learners are used to sitting in chairs to receive information, it can provoke emotions and feelings. Students tap into their affective minds to deal with those emotions and their conative minds to act on their thoughts and feelings to deepen their understanding of mental models, and the challenges involved with changing mental models. This is important to understand before they enter business organizations.

Senge (1990) identified mental models as one of the five disciplines required by a learning organization. Mental models—while useful and effective at times—can also cause organizations to fail when the mental models no longer match the circumstances. He demonstrated this through the parable of the boiled frog which tells us that a frog placed in boiling water will jump out, although a frog placed in cold water which is gradually heated to boiling will stay in the water and die. It appears that, like a frog, an organization may react quickly to a blatant crisis, but fail to recognize slower changes in the environment. Senge also recounted another example of this using the beer game simulation developed at MIT in 1960. The simulation, which includes a beer marketer, distributer, and retailer, depicted a boom and bust cycle that left the distributor with a huge inventory in the warehouse and no orders from retailers. Senge argued that organizations can be prisoners of their own system and of their own thinking.

Collins (2009) reinforced this notion in his book How the Mighty Fall. More recently, Bolman and Deal (2015) pointed out many different labels for mental models such as maps, frames, mind-sets, or world views. Mental models are the images, assumptions, and stories organizations hold in their corporate memory of how the organization functions, what defines success, what constitutes the core function of the organization, and all other aspects of organizational life. These collective mental models are made up of the individual mental models of the people who work in and around the organization. As individuals we are often unconsciously unaware of our mental models, which makes it much harder to unearth collective mental models.

Barker (1992) referred to mental models as paradigms and argued that when a shift occurs in the environment or technology, the organization does not know how to perform. It can then fail as Collins (2009) so eloquently showed us in his book on organizational failure. Or as Bolman and Deal (2015) pointed out, “Contemporary leaders need mental models that are versatile and subtle enough to make sense of the VUCA (volatile-uncertain-complex-ambiguous) world of modern institutions” (p. 35). Mental models have been studied in the area of business ethics (Werhane et al., 2011), teamwork (Hsu, Chang, Klein, & Jiang, 2011; Virgă, CurŞeu, Maricuţoiu, Sava, & Macsinga, 2014), and operational research (Schaffernicht & Groesser, 2011).

While mental models are a critical concept for business students to grasp, mental models are also very complex, ambiguous, tacit, limited, and ultimately flawed. They are like a cut glass window through which we view the world in a distorted and subjective manner. Yet even with their shortcomings, no human being can navigate the complex environments of our world without mental models (Barker, 1992; Bolman & Deal, 2015; Senge, 1990). Experiential exercises that can help business students understand and appreciate mental models are invaluable. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (Senge, Ross, Smith, Roberts, & Kleiner, 1994) dedicates almost 60 pages to mental models. The fieldbook introduces guiding ideas about mental models using the lexicon to explain theory and methods. In addition to the cameo entries from guest contributors who share their real-life experiences, a tool kit of practical techniques, and resources including articles, books, and videos, and both solo and team exercises are provided. However, those are exercises that work at the cognitive level.

Line dancing provides an interesting, kinesthetic method of introducing this concept using the affective and conative domains. Peterson and Williams (2004) have written about using dance to teach students about leadership. The first author has used line dancing in several types of classes: personal leadership, advanced leadership, organizational behavior, graduate management, and change management (Peterson, 2002a, 2002b). He has also used line dancing as a consultant in the fuel industry, when the Chief Information Officer for Citgo Petroleum hired him to help employees from information technology as well as supply and logistics. When the company consolidated separate computer systems into an enterprise resource planning system so that the upstream (exploration and production) oil and gas sector was more in synch with the downstream (refining, marketing, and distribution) sector, employees needed to develop new mental models.

Let us begin by examining how dance can contribute to learning. Dance can be described as movement to music. Both movement and music have proven impacts on learning. Movement while learning provides additional sensory input to the brain (Wolfe, 2001) and provides both cognitive and motor links to the learning. Learning that occurs while moving involves procedural or muscle memory, which is one of the strongest memory systems in the brain (Tate, 2004, 2012).

Music has been shown to increase creativity and thinking (Jensen, 2008). Music activates different parts of the brain depending on the learning task. Harmony and rhythm activate more of the left brain, while melody activates more of the right brain, and the act of counting beats to maintain rhythm activates the cerebellum. The cerebellum assists with the coordination of thought processes (Markowitz & Jensen, 1999, 2007).

Sometimes movement and music cause a synergistic effect: music activates long-term memory (Webb & Webb, 1990), while movement ties the learning to powerful muscle memory (Tate, 2004, 2012). In addition, physical activity increases the brain’s oxygen and glucose, which stimulates brain cells to connect with and “talk” with other brain cells (Materna, 2007), while music activates and synchronizes neurons’ firing patterns, which connects multiple brain sites (Jensen, 2008).

In addition to the impact on learning, memory, and brain function, dancing can be fun and have other positive effects. Lengel and Kuczala (2010) identified 17 separate action research projects that demonstrated these effects. These projects provided evidence “that using movement during learning can ready the brain and body for learning, increase the level of motivation, create a positive state for learning, increase the level of participation and engagement, and help people remember and recall information” (Tate, 2012, p. 72).

Because dance can be an effective way to embody and demonstrate mental models, we propose three different line dances for classroom use: the Electric Slide, New York Stroll, and Cotton-Eyed Joe (Peterson, Peterson, Krom & Griffith, 2014). Many line dances are made up of components of other line dances. For example, once an individual has created a mental model by learning the grapevine step sequence, it can be used in different line dances such as the Electric Slide and the New York Stroll. So small mental models can be combined in different ways to make up larger mental models. This process works in the same way that we learn to carry out many business tasks such as creating a pro forma income statement or creating a computer program for inventory control.

Not all three line dances have to be used to teach about mental models nor do all the line dances have to be taught at the same time. The Electric Slide is the easiest of the dances to learn so it would be a good starting point. The choreography of a four-wall line dance has dancers turn 90 degrees after each set of steps so that during the course of the dance they will face all four walls in turn. The dancers follow a grapevine pattern by stepping to the side on one foot, then putting the other foot behind the first one, then repeating those steps again.

A group of learners usually has a variety of dance experience. Some people learning the Electric Slide have no previous experience with line dances and thus have no mental model for the dance. In fact, they may hold a mental model of themselves as being non-dancers or not having rhythm. Other learners may have line dance experience, but not know the Electric Slide. For these people, learning the Electric Slide would add another dance to their repertoire. If they already know at least one line dance, they may have a mental model of certain patterns such as a Grapevine sequence of steps that is used in many dances. By “reusing” steps they have learned previously in another dance, learning the Electric Slide can be more efficient.

Some students may say they already know how to do the Electric Slide, but when the dance begins they may discover that they do not all know the same version of the dance. Some know the country version while others know the urban version of the dance. These students already have a mental model, while others do not know it at all. So there is confusion. Some experienced dancers may try to demonstrate their expertise by adding additional turns and flourishes. We can make this a teachable moment by pointing out that the group of dancers represents an organization and each organization has its own culture, which is a mental model. In this organization we need to all dance the dance the same way, at least in the beginning. Those who do not know the dance will be very confused if we are all operating with different mental models. The novices are followers who are looking for leaders, and as the dance progresses through all four directions, they will have different leaders in front of them. If people are doing different variations, there will be confusion inside the organization. Later, when the dancers have developed some expertise, if we want to add embellishments it will be alright, but in the beginning we need to share the same steps and mental model.

Even using one line dance can enhance a discussion of mental models, but incorporating more than one dance during the course of a semester provides more advantages and opportunities for learning. When teaching a second or third line dance, the facilitator can discuss how learning a new dance can either be supported or impeded by previous mental models of an earlier dance. When the sequence of dance steps or number of repetitions changes, dancers have to “unlearn” what they knew from the previous mental model in order to adapt to the new dance. An instructor can help with the students’ metacognition by pointing out that a mental model that was appropriate in one situation can be tweaked to make it appropriate under new conditions. Students may be told that it can be quicker to learn additional line dances because they already have a mental model for the Grapevine or for a four-wall line dance.

The second dance we recommend is the New York Stroll. While this dance is only a two-wall dance and uses the Grapevine sequence of steps, it adds additional complexity in the way the Grapevine is used. Finally the third dance, the Cotton Eye Joe, uses the shuffle step from the New York Stroll but adds the complexity of moving around the room and linking with other dancers.

Our objective has been to introduce an interesting way to help students learn about mental models through line dancing and we provide three sets of supplemental materials to facilitate the teaching and learning (available online at http://mtr.sagepub.com/supplemental). Appendix A provides information about each of the line dances, including step instructions, suitable music for each dance, and links to videos. In Appendix B, the authors have also shared how to link the different line dances to different management or business disciplines. We provide examples of how to use the electric slide in a leadership class, an information systems class, a managerial accounting class, and a training or human resources class. Finally, the authors share their reflections on line dancing as it relates to mental models in general and to their own personal mental models. These reflections are available in Appendix C.

Line dancing provides an engaging and interesting way to introduce students to the concept of mental models. It allows the learners to experience cognitively, conatively, and affectively the challenges they face when their mental models must change to adapt to new circumstances. “It is thus worth pursuing a teaching and learning strategy in which students are led to examine their own mental models, find inconsistencies, and correct them” (Ross, 2004, pp. 80-81). Dancing provides many opportunities throughout the semester to connect the mental model of dancing to the topic of the day. So, can we have this dance with you? We think you will find this method of teaching about mental models engaging and informative.