Embodied Learning
By: Stefanie Faye
A common myth about learning is that if a person learns in ways that tailor to their learning preference, they learn and remember concepts better. Yes, research shows that people will express preferences about how they prefer information to be presented to them. There is also evidence that people have different aptitudes for different ways of processing information. However, there is little reliable research-support for spending time and resources for incorporating learning-styles assessments.
What IS supported by research? That students learn, remember, and apply new concepts and information better if they process that information in multiple different ways. Processing information in multiple and varied forms (including multiple senses, abstract and concrete representations, diverse examples, and varied activities) creates elaborated and detailed memories, which enhances the long-term retention and generalization of that knowledge.
When you truly learn something - to a deep enough level that you can use it in real life, the brain-body system creates sensory-motor simulations as though you are reliving it. Learning on surface levels where you can only repeat, or mimic is not the same thing. Unfortunately, this is the surface level kind of learning that happens in schools and in a lot of professional learning environments. This makes it so a person can only repeat what they’ve heard, they haven’t applied it in their own life.
An example is an expert violinist player. When this expert musician thinks of ‘bassoon’, their entire brain lights up with activity that simulates what it’s like to feel the smoothness of the instrument, the vibration of the sounds, etc. as they hear and play the instrument. Someone who has never played that instrument will not have the same areas light up when they think about a bassoon - there will be categories and words associated with ‘bassoon’, such as instrument or music, but that embodied, sensorimotor anchor of knowledge will not be there. To learn something well enough to apply it, personalize and use it, we need to ‘play’ with the world, interact with it using our bodies and senses. (Macrine & Fugate, 2002)
The richer the initial experience , the richer the information that can be used for the simulation (Macrine & Fugate, 2022). Using more of our senses (including interoceptive and proprioceptive senses) during the learning process gives the brain-body more data to use later.
I remember walking into a first-grade classroom years ago and seeing a new teacher struggle with helping the students understand addition. She was showing slides on a screen and giving them worksheets. As part of our partnership for bringing neuroscience knowledge into the classroom, I shared with her aspects of why embodied learning is so important. We decided to bring out small plastic coins for the kids to feel - with their senses - what addition actually means in the physical world. That it was not just an abstract idea represented by squiggles and lines on a page. As the students held the coins in their hands and saw addition happen with their eyes, they began to answer the addition questions correctly. This was a great example of a teacher who was open to expanding how she was teaching, and how to integrate the body into the process.
All great teachers are also exceptional learners - and this process of exceptional, deep learning is what makes them great teachers. This type of deep, impactful, embodied learning is extremely difficult to do with the old, factory-model school paradigm of a ‘talking head teacher’ at the front of the room and children seated at their desks.
What and how we teach children and young people about themselves, and the world is a sacred process that is often not honored in how typical classrooms are run. I have seen many kids begin to believe that something is wrong with them. Not because they are unable to learn, but because of the teachers’ and education system’s outdated understanding of how humans actually learn and optimize their functioning. The world misses out on what the next generation has to offer when we try to force human intelligence into a standardized process.
Di Vesta, F. J., & Peverly, S. T. (1984). The effects of encoding variability, processing activity, and rule–examples sequence on the transfer of conceptual rules. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76(1), 108–119
Macrine, S., and Fugate. J. (2022) Movement Matters: How Embodied Cognition Informs Teaching and Learning. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262543484/
Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105-119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x
Schiavio, A. & van der Schyff, D. (2018). 4E music pedagogy and the principles of self-organization. Behavioral Sciences, 8(8), 72.
This article was crafted by Stefanie Faye, an independent contributor engaged by CheckIT Labs, Inc. to provide insights on this topic.
