(Merleau-Ponty, 2004) argues that our engagement with the world is not just cognitive or theoretical, but involves the emotional, practical, aesthetic and so on. He said that human experiences connect strongly with the notion that learning involves the exploration of the world from where one is and a clear understanding of how things relate to each other and to ourselves in the world. This resonate to me but does not give me answers on how we actually learn. I have read various theories of learning, such as behaviourism, constructivism, cognitivism and other teaching and learning empirical findings, all very interesting and describing different learning experiences. Also, the use of technology has been very helpful in designing a learning experience that the students can understand meaningfully.
However, regardless of the type of the instruction designed in classroom. In general, I always have different level and quality of understanding in class. Contemporary studies on education show that students have different and multiple intelligences, they perceive the world around them differently and therefore learn differently. Mathematics can be represented and perceived in various ways, and how the students come to learn math is equally varied and diverse. I use technology to provide the students with comprehensive activities through which they can experience learning and meaningfully grasp and understand the concepts being taught. It remains that some students learn better than others. Why do some learn better than others? Is this related to the instructional design or to an intrinsic inert ability? Check out this video.
I watched this video where students in a primary school are playing an interactive math game on the floor. I understand that students easily get and stay engaged with embodied learning. However, I am not seeing in this video any cognitive learning pertaining to the body taking place. Is embodied learning only about engaging students?
Reference
Stolz, S. A. (2015). Embodied learning. Educational philosophy and theory, 47(5), 474-487.
Hello Vivien,
Your posting resonated with me because you suggested the importance of Howard GardnerMultiple’s (2011) Mulitple Intelligences (MI) within an embodied learning environment. Futhermore, McLellan, H. (1994) specified that “virtual reality offers many possibilities as a tool for nontraditional learners, including the physically disabled and those undergoing rehabilitation who must learn new communication and psychomotor skills” (p. 57). Virtual Reality infused with MI, is a powerful tool to support learning through multisensory and multidimensional disciplines.
Thank you for emphasizing the correlation of MI in your math example.
~Mary
Gardner, H. (2011). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. Basic books.
McLellan, H. (1994). Virtual reality and multiple intelligences: Potentials for higher education. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 5(2), 33-66. 10.1007/BF02948570
Hi Mary,
Thank you for your insight on MI. I can understand how Virtual Reality (VR) infused with MI. I think the key words here are “visualization” and “perceptualization”. We are looking into an environment where learning is mainly experiential or intuitive. I find Gardner’s seven types of intelligences very interesting to describe MI; that are (1) spatial intelligence (2) bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, (3) logical-mathematical intelligence, (4) musical intelligence, (5)linguistic intelligence, (6) interpersonal intelligence, and (7) intrapersonal intelligence. There are opportunities to use these type of intelligences to embody learning in math and science. I think to do so, we need to figure out how to represent information in ways that can engage any of our students’ sensory systems and thus, draw on their vast experience in organising and interpreting sensory input. I draw this from Erickson’s (1993) arguments on VR. Virtual Reality technology is slowly developing. I haven’t been using it much. Actually, I played with Google cardboard and expeditions just a couple of time. I think it is time to go back and investigate how I can use VR tech to teach math. It would be a lot of fun to take my students on a virtual math field trip solving equations and problems during our journey.
Any idea on applicable VR tech activities for math and science?
Vivien
Great post, Vivien! I think along the same lines of you and it is an important question to continue asking, how does this help children learn? I didn’t get a sense of that in any of the reading I did. Theoretically it made sense to me but practically there are some missing puzzle pieces.
Thank you!
Hi Allison,
It is as if embodied learning want learning to happen through emotions and body sensors, which that are created from children’s perception of the world around them. I agree that the theory of embodied learning is comprehensible while the practicability is confusing. I randomly thought of this quote “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” This happened when I was reading Scott’s post on embodied learning. I believe that embodied learning has something to do with emotional experiences. I think we will agree that emotional events are remembered more clearly, accurately and for longer periods of time than are neutral events. Emotion has a substantial influence on the children’s cognitive processes in classroom, including perception, attention, learning, memory, reasoning, and problem solving. One thing that emotion would do it is to make the children modulating the selectivity of their attention in class as well as motivating their action and behaviour.
Vivien
Hello Vivien, you make a fair point by asking whether this is helping children learn. I personally think it is because I still remember the games we used to play when we were kids by drawing on the driveway with a chalk. I still remember how it gave me a better sense of numbers than any of the worksheets I did at school. Moving your body when learning helps you remember the learning, I think. I think when moving body while learning, your body learns too, not just your brain.
GK
Hi GK,
Thank you for sharing your experience of drawing on the driveway with chalk resonates to me. Myself, the only way I can still remember the periodic table of elements in chemistry, it’s by singing a song that my Chemistry teacher taught us. I think the reason why I still remember this song it is because it is really provocative and funny. Check out this article on mixing music and math to engage students, I found it relevant for embodied learning.
https://edsource.org/2018/lullaby-of-algebra-how-mixing-music-and-math-helps-engage-students/594096
Vivien
Hello Vivien,
I agree, I wasn’t entirely convinced about embodied learning! Practically, it does make sense but I also feel that many teachers do take into account embodied learning without knowing the term for it. I don’t necessarily see too much value in creating units and lessons around it, but instead I think that good teachers are making use of this theory already! You brought up an interesting point about embodied learning being engaging. I agree, but think that there are several methods that could accomplish this and this isn’t the sole way!
Thanks
Kathryn
Hi Kathryn,
Indeed, many teachers do take into account various theories of teaching and learning without knowing the term for it. I also think that embodied learning is just another tool in our tool box, which that we can use when is appropriate.
Thank you
I wonder if we look at the way in which the learners interacts with the activity what it tells us about the intstruction? In this case, I saw students jumping on the correct answer. In this way their whole body is involved in the learning, which I think is an effective support in maths instruction. The feedback their bodies received, however, was not related to the concept being taught. In this case students were looking at addition questions but the kinesthetic feedback their bodies received had no correlation to an increased number of objects. I wonder if, for example, requiring the student to jump a number of times to represent the response would result in more meaningful learning? In each case here, learners jumped once to represent the number. What if to represent three they had to jump three times? If our bodies are tied to learning then it stands to reason that the kinesthetic feedback from interacting from our environment actually needs to vary.
I’m interested in building on this idea with others. Any thoughts?
Hi Tracy,
I think the experience that a student has from an embodied learning activity is subjective and mostly depends on his or her internal state of mind. Also, the quality of the experience (good or bad) is not necessary positively correlated to the learning process. If the students are tired when they are required to jump as many times as the value of the number they want to represent, then they will have a painful experience. However, this does not necessary mean that the students won’t find learning meaningful. The activity should provide the students with opportunities to experience and perceive the information in the manner that make sense to them. Except, providing the students with good stimuli I don’t think that teachers have an direct impact on how the students sense their learning environment.
Vivien
Great discussion.
You’ve raised some important questions and inquiries about embodied learning. Do all students learn from this type of learning? Or do some find it overwhelming and exhausting? We know that the best approach is to find a balanced approach to teaching and learning so that we can reach all of our students, but how do we accomplish this?
I worry about those students who come to school with little food in their bellies and who didn’t sleep through the night. I’m not sure they have the energy to get up move for every activity they are learning about in school. We need to gauge the needs of our students and find ways to reach them in their learning journey.
Just a few thoughts that came to mind after reading through this post and the comments. Thanks for getting me thinking about the needs of ALL my students.
Nicole