The Future of Embodied Design for Mathematics Teaching and Learning

Abstract

A rising epistemological paradigm in the cognitive sciences-embodied cognition-has been stimulating innovative approaches, among educational researchers, to the design and analysis of STEM teaching and learning. The paradigm promotes theorizations of cognitive activity as grounded, or even constituted, in goal-oriented multimodal sensorimotor phenomenology. Conceptual learning, per these theories, could emanate from, or be triggered by, experiences of enacting or witnessing particular movement forms, even before these movements are explicitly signified as illustrating target content. Putting these theories to practice, new types of learning environments are being explored that utilize interactive technologies to initially foster student enactment of conceptually oriented movement forms and only then formalize these gestures and actions in disciplinary formats and language. In turn, new research instruments, such as multimodal learning analytics, now enable researchers to aggregate, integrate, model, and represent students' physical movements, eye-gaze paths, and verbal-gestural utterance so as to track and evaluate emerging conceptual capacity. We-a cohort of cognitive scientists and design-based researchers of embodied mathematics-survey a set of empirically validated frameworks and principles for enhancing mathematics teaching and learning as dialogic multimodal activity, and we synthetize a set of principles for educational practice.

From feeling forces to understanding forces: The impact of bodily engagement on learning in science

“…Embodied learning is implemented at several degrees of bodily engagement: finger tracing (Botzer & Yerushalmy, 2008), gestures (e.g., Alibali & Nathan, 2012), large motor action (e.g., Abrahamson et al, 2012), full‐body movements (e.g., Johnson‐Glenberg et al, 2014), and force feedback: feeling the force that contributes to or that is involved in the studied motion (Han & Black, 2011; Magana & Balachandran, 2017; Minogue & Borland, 2016; Neri et al, 2018; Reiner, 1999). Empirical studies show that embodied learning environments enhance understanding either when the action is performed by the learner, such as gestures (e.g., Abrahamson et al, 2020), or when the action is performed on the learner, such as a haptic force exerted on the body (e.g., Neri et al, 2018; Reiner, 1999).…”

“…Changing persistent concepts requires, among other things, well‐designed learning environments that promote the restructuring of knowledge schemas (Plass et al, 2012; Stieff & Wilensky, 2003). We approach this challenge from the perspective of embodied learning, which relates the knowledge‐construction process to the physical interactions of learners with their surroundings (Abrahamson et al, 2020). According to embodied learning theory, perceptual experience may provide the grounds for constructing mental simulations of an abstract phenomenon.…”

From STEM to STEAM: An Enactive and Ecological Continuum

“…These researchers proposed attentional anchors as a mechanism that channels attention during agentmedium couplings, as enabling restrictions for action (Hutto and Sánchez-García, 2014). In addition to this, Abrahamson et al (2020) carried out an exhaustive review on different research approaches based on perception and action design, which would be very useful for STEM design. The researchers suggest that being informed about the research on how we learn to move in new ways could help us better design, measure, and theorize the performance of physical movements that underpin STEM learning, particularly the enactive and ecological approaches.…”

“…Even though the studies framed in the enactive and ecological approaches of Hutto et al (2015) and Abrahamson et al (2020) provide solid evidence about embodied design research and the sensorimotor dynamics that is at the base of learning in the context of STEM, we consider it necessary to report some untreated and highly relevant aspects within the framework of a unified enactive-ecological approach for a STEAM pedagogy. In particular, we consider certain knowledge gaps that are recognized in the empirical evidence and that would be of great use to researchers in the STEM/STEAM field and educational organizations wishing to incorporate these methodologies.…”

“…To justify point 1), we ascribe to the proposals of Abrahamson et al (2020) on the need for enactive (Varela et al, 1991) and ecological (Gibson, 1979) approaches for the design of educational environments based on perception and action, since current approaches to cognition obviate the importance of cultural artifacts and the body as sources of knowledge. The enactive and ecological approaches provide new ways of understanding the role of sensorimotor activity in the development of learning experiences, mediated by the action of perception of and adaptation to the environment.…”