Embodied Cognition & Enactivism: Implications for Education

AERA 2010
Embodied Cognition & Enactivism:
Implications for
Constructivism & Conceptual Change
Doug Holton
doug.holton@usu.edu
Instructional Technology
& Learning Sciences
http://itls.usu.edu/

May 1, 2010 AERA - Doug Holton 1

Embodied Cog & Enactivism
The idea that our cognitive processes are
grounded in sensory behavior and motor
actions.

The mind and body and world are
inseparable.
(Qing Li, AERA 2010)


Embodied Cog Examples
• Hill looks steeper wearing a backpack
•
Holding a warm drink, people rate others as
more warm and friendly than w/cold drink
•
Faster to respond 'yes' when pushing lever,
faster to respond 'no' when pulling it
•
Right handed people view things more
positively on the right side and vice versa
•
More likely to recall positive experiences
when moving marbles up into box than
when moving them down


Haptic Advantage
• Faster and more accurate mental
transformations when performing an action
congruent with the imagined transformation,
and vice versa
• Pulley & gear systems – pulling a rope
blindfolded or imagining pulling a rope
helps people mentally animate the behavior
•
We are better at judging the volume of
shapes from haptic than from visual info
•
Haptics assist Piagetian conservation tasks


Other Embodiment Examples
•
Hundreds more published examples >20 yrs
• You can probably come up with your own –
pacing when working on a paper, gesturing
when giving a presentation, etc.
•
Eventually you get to a point where it is hard
to think of examples that are not embodied or
do not involve embodiment in some manner
• philosophy, colors, math abstractions
(Lakoff, Johnson, Noe, Nunez...)


Summary of Embodied Cog
For a summary see:
Embodiment and
Cognitive Science
Raymond Gibbs, 2006

and see:
http://embodiedcog.
wikispaces.com/


Connections to Activity Theory
Some of the first folks to consider issues of
embodiment are from phenomenology –
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Don Ihde...today:
Shaun Gallagher and others

Kaptelenin & Bonnie Nardi – Acting with
Technology (ch.9) found a great deal of
overlap between activity theory and
(embodied) phenomenology


Applying E.C. to Education
• What's missing are comprehensive
applications of embodied cognition &
enactivism to education

• Despite the variety of research on
embodied cognition, virtually all the
examples I mentioned have little or no
application to education.


Applying E.C. to Education
We're not going to:
•
give different exam response sheets for left
and right handed students
•
serve kids warm drinks
•
give teachers warm apple pies instead of cold
apples

Abstracting to Education
One must abstract from the general principles
of embodied cognition and enactivism to
inspire new learning designs and other new
educational applications and frameworks.

Or use embodiment as a lens to revisit
existing educational theories & techniques.

Some example applications...

Applications to Education
• Children 'act out' a story w/figurines leads to
better reading comprehension (Arthur Glenberg)
• Improved math learning when teachers attend to
the gestures they and their students use
(Susan Goldin-Meadow-Hearing Gesture)
• Better understand molecular structures when
allowed to haptically manipulate 3D models
(Gail Jones)
• Minogue & Jones (2006). Haptics in Education
• Wolff-Michael Roth – Gestures
• Hasn't been a more general review or book


Applying to Constructivism
Let's look back at constructivism through the
lens of embodiment and enactivism.

Enactivism might be considered one flavor
of constructivism, in addition to social
constructivism, radical constructivism...
(see Constructivist Foundations website)


Applying to Constructivism
Knowledge isn't a structure you build or an
object that can be passed around or purely
linguistic: “it is not knowledge-as-object
but knowledge-as-action”
(Begg, 2000)
Knowledge isn't “stuff” (ala Michi Chi)
in your head.
Knowledge isn't an object or product
(Dewey)


Constructivism
Re-summarizing some advantages of
constructivism:
• More student-centered
•
Active participation is critical
• Presenting information does not mean a
student learned or understood it
• Students aren't blank slates or machines to
be programmed
• Students aren't a homogenous group


Q's about Constructivism
• How is knowledge constructed?
•
What is the nature of this knowledge and its
relationship to the world? (epistemology)
•
How do we know what students
understand? (assessment) hard Q for Von
Glasersfeld
• Why and when is guidance necessary?
•
Why do students have the “misconceptions”
or alternative conceptions that they do?


Enactivism
• May help us answer some of these Q's
•
May provide a better grounding for some
concepts and techniques from
constructivism and the learning sciences
• Humanizes students even more: empathy
•
Pay attention to the whole learning
environment including gestures and the
body
• Provides some (embodied) constraints on
learning


Wolff-Michael Roth
“Learning environments that do not support
students’ use of body and gesture can limit
what and how they learn” (Roth & Lawless,
2001).
“What is called teaching, therefore, involves not
only the words and sentences a teacher
utters and writes on the board during a
lesson, but also all the hands/arms gestures,
body movements, and facial expressions a
teacher performs in the classroom” (Pozzer-
Ardenghi & Roth, 2006, p.96)

Applying to Conceptual Change
Let's look at conceptual change research
through the lens of embodiment:
“Naive notions like those derived from bodily
metaphors may underpin misconceptions,
such as the quasi-Aristotelian notions that
Alternative Frameworks researchers in
science education have documented
extensively” (Ernst, 2006)


Conceptual Change
See Cambridge Handbook of Concept.Change
•
Michelene Chi – conceiving of processes as
objects or substances (like diffusion/current)
•
Andy diSessa – phenomenological
primitives, “knowledge in pieces”
• force as mover
•
force as action
• Are embodied actions central to core p-prims
•
Are actions coordinated, even theory-like
• Is there an 'embodied physics'

Animations/Diagrams/Sims
Diagrams let us take our time, mentally re-
animate processes. Animations/videos may
be too fast or too slow.
The more realistic/complex the simulation, the
more difficult for the learner to use.

More effective alternative: User-controllable
diagrams or animated, controllable
simulations (Lowe, 2004; Chan & Black,
2006)


Example: Graph Interpretation

“graph as picture” misconception -G. Leinhardt


MBL: Microcomp-Based Labs
Better understand success of MBL approach:
connecting sensors with computers

Ex: Drag a car back and forth along a track,
and the computer graphs its
position/speed/acceleration in real-time

Within 20 minutes, students better understand
how to interpret graphs of motion. Video not
as successful, non-real-time also hurts perf


Controllable Circuit Simulation
• Move voltage “up” or “down” using a slider
or joystick or steering wheel
• “Enact” a voltage source: battery (constant
voltage), AC (alternating current)
• “Wiggle” the voltage and see the effects on
electrical current flow (as represented by a
moving chain of dots → speed=current)
•
Better understand the behavior and
difference between capacitors and
inductors, high/low pass filters...


Lessons Learned
•
Embodying concepts helps for abstract, non-
visualizable, non-physical concepts, as well.
•
There doesn't have to be a one-to-one
spatially isomorphic congruence between the
action and the thing being conceived.
Temporal and causal congruence appear to
be most important (see research on causal
perception).
•
It is not the actions per se we attend to &
learn, but the constraints on our actions
(similar to Vygotsky's internalization concept)

Contrasting Cases
• Another highly successful
instructional technique

• In the next slides, ask yourself – what
do you notice in the left box?


What do you see in left box?


What did you notice?

A Circle

Now try it again

What do you notice in the left box?



A Smaller Circle

You noticed the size now
And perhaps the white color too

Try It Again



A Circle in the Middle

Now the position of the circle
Is more salient


Contrasting Cases
Why does this strategy work? How does it
work? Why do we notice the “difference”?

Perhaps when we see 2 contrasting cases,
we transform/manipulate one into the other.

For example move or grow the circle.

Similarity as [embodied] transformation
(Hahn et al., 2003)


Conclusion
Embodied cognition research and enactivism
may serve as a new foundation for research
on conceptual change and constructivist-
inspired learning environments.


Conclusion
“Learning environments that do not support
students’ use of body and gesture can limit
what and how they learn” (Roth & Lawless,
2001).

One should not ignore the the embodied
nature of teaching and learning, even in
online learning contexts (McWilliam &
Taylor, 1998; Bayne, 2004; Dall'Alba &
Barnacle, 2005) [e.g., presence]

Enactivism Gotchas
• Embodied cog/enactivism is not
behaviorism
• There are many diverse notions of
embodiment, however, at many levels
• Embodiment does not simply mean 'make it
hands-on' or 'use avatars' or
'anthropomorphize things' (embodied
interactivity plus constraints on activity)
• Sometimes limited/constrained interactivity
is more effective than full/unconstrained
activity (Hegarty)

Design Principle
Ultimately, when designing a learning
environment think about:
What are the key constraints I want students
to understand, and how can I help students
embody them.

This helps regardless of whether you are
teaching: circuits, math problems, writing for
an audience, helping students understand a
historical episode, etc.

Embodiment: A New Lens
Considerations of embodiment provide a new
lens on learning, teaching, educational
research, instructional design, and theory.

“The content is the audience.”
– Marshall McLuhan

Thank You
doug.holton@usu.edu

Copies of papers for this & other session at:

http://embodiedcog.wikispaces.com/


Embodied Cognition & Enactivism: Implications for Education

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