What If We Look at the Body? An Embodied Perspective of Collaborative Learning

Abstract

The bodily experiences and implications of understanding the functioning of the human brain–body mechanism has been a center of attention in the field of cognitive neurosciences for over two decades. Research in this field has enlarged the theories of learning and development, and contributed to changes in educational practices involving language processing, mathematics, and spatial thinking; however, these changes have not yet been applied to the analysis of transversal competencies such as collaborative learning. The aim of this paper is to bridge the theoretical and applied advances in the field of embodied cognition, specifically collaborative learning. The definitions, theoretical frameworks, and current methodological approaches in the field of collaborative learning are reviewed, with a particular focus on those studies that have investigated interactive dynamics in collaborative situations. The need to take the field further by exploring the theoretical perspective of embodied cognition as a possibility that can open the field is also presented. The relevance of investigating learning in groups by analyzing bodily engagements and intersubjectivity is demonstrated and methodological considerations are raised.

Advancing video research methodology to capture the processes of social interaction and multimodality

“…Video data is irreplaceable for research on learning behaviors (Schoenfeld, 2017). The multimodal analysis requires moving beyond just verbal interactions, to see how the learners interact with each other and with their learning environment through their different senses (Ferreira, 2021;Sinclair & de Freitas, 2019). In a recent study, Pruner and Liljedahl (2021) used video recordings to study problem solving in a collaborative learning setting, addressing also student attention to other groups than their own.…”

“…Some characteristics of video make it especially suitable for specific research questions. First, the video is audiovisual material, capturing both sounds and visual features of the situation, thus making it good material for multimodal analysis focusing not only on language, but also on material resources and bodily actions (Davidsen & Vanderlinde, 2014;Ferreira, 2021;Sinclair & de Freitas, 2019). Second, video captures processes.…”

“…Current mathematics education research focusing on multimodality and body in collaborative learning processes has identified research gaps and needs to develop methods. For example, Ferreira (2021Ferreira ( , p. 1468 has pointed out that collaborative learning "is not confined to students' heads and dependent only on verbal dialogues", highlighting that learning is dependent on both social structures and the bodies involved, concluding that such complexities of learning are "yet unexplored." Moreover, Sinclair and de Freitas (2019), in their review of studies about body in mathematics, emphasize "the need to develop research methodologies that are adequate to the complex socio-material practices" (p. 228), specifying that the "methodological challenges of studying different scales of bodily mathematical activity-brain, gut, gesture, eye, gender, race, geolocation-is felt across different research approaches" (p. 229).…”

Embodied Interaffectivity in the Emergence and Maintenance of Group Cohesion

“…As Roth and Jornet (2013, p. 474) put it "social aspects give rise to the shared nature of affect, " such as emotion contagion, collective grief, or euphoria, emotionally charged disagreements, and other common experiences of situated affectivity that moment-bymoment shape social life through vocal, facial, postural, and other modes of expression. Thus, social meaning making is facilitated not only verbally but also through continually unfolding non-verbal phenomena that convey messages almost instantaneously: through pursed lips, a tightening jaw, the slightly turned (cold shoulder), a compassionate gaze, placement of objects, implying implicit communicative messages often not easily, or effectively, conveyed by words (Ferreira, 2021).…”

“…Given the importance of cohesion for groups to effectively, and autonomously, manage the inevitable challenges of collaboration (Hod and Katz, 2020), we examined how group cohesion emerged and unfolded in one group of university students who reported a highly positive and cohesive interactive experience following their groupwork over one semester. In a review of the collaborative learning literature, Ferreira (2021) proposed that an embodied perspective that highlights the situated corporeality of actors in social interaction, may provide an insightful lens for exploring transversal competencies such as the interpersonal and socioemotional capabilities that are critical for effective collaboration. Therefore, this paper presents a fine-grained case analysis, from an embodied perspective, of the emergence of group cohesion as dynamically evolving (Hendry et al, 2016) and affectively-charged (Knight and Eisenkraft, 2015).…”