Week 1 – Reading Summary

This week I am summarizing two short sections of Foundations of Embodied Learning: A Paradigm for Education written by Mitchell J. Nathan and published in 2021.  The first excerpt is the first few pages of the first chapter which is entitled “We are Learning Creatures Who Struggle to Design Effective Education Systems: Framing the Problem”.  The second excerpt is from chapter 6 where the author provides examples of embodied learning in mathematics.

The author begins by criticizing modern/mainstream education.  He claims that the education system is ineffective because teachers lack both evidence-based theories of how learning works and frameworks to assess learning.  Nathan further claims that administrators are incompetent at allocating resources and training their staff.  The education system is broken and the people that work in education don’t know what learning really is, but he knows.  He claims his text will present “a coherent, evidence-based framework for how people actually learn”.  He states that the natural ways of thinking, teaching, and learning are embodied, meaning that people must use movement, action, and other forms of body-based sense-making to form new ideas and connect them with prior knowledge and experiences.  It seems a tad overly dramatic and exaggerated to me, but he gets his point across.

 

STOP#1: What is Learning?

Nathan states “I define learning as lasting changes in our behavior.  Whenever we can observe these systemic changes in behavior, we can ascribe some learning process.”

I stopped and thought about this statement for some time because I’m not sure I agree with it.  I think learning can occur even if it doesn’t change one’s behavior.  Consider finding out that the sun is just another star in the sky, it simply happens to be a lot closer to Earth than all the others.  Has learning occurred?  Yes.  Will this new information change one’s behavior?  Probably not.  I agree that if a teacher can observe a change in behavior they can conclude learning has occurred, but that’s not a two-way street; just because learning has occurred does not necessarily mean that it will create an observable change in behavior.

 

Nathan further discusses what he considers misguided educational practices currently in widespread use.  He states that schools rarely focus academic learning on practical or everyday experiences and instead use conceptual tools such as math equations and graphs, reinforcing Descartes’ philosophy of mind-body separation.  Sitting at desks and learning with computers and textbooks is problematic because it sets up a situation where some students can simply memorize and recite back information without really understanding it.  The reverse of this situation is also problematic.  If a student can’t learn (or show their learning) in that traditional conceptual way the teacher might assess them as not knowing something when in fact they actually do know it but in an embodied way that could be shown through action, physical movement, etc.

STOP#2: Traditional vs. Embodied Learning

Nathan paints a pretty bleak picture of traditional conceptual ways of teaching and learning.  It seems like he’s exaggerating the situation, but he does make a good point.  For example, I see some of my own students think of mathematics as a set of algorithmic steps and calculations to follow to get an answer – they know how to multiply and reduce fractions but they don’t really know what fractions are or what they represent in the real world.  A focus on conceptual learning allows this “short-circuit” in understanding to occur, but a focus on embodied learning would ensure that the real-world practical uses of fractions could not be overlooked.

 

The book is not focused solely on mathematics learning, but Nathan uses examples from mathematics to show the benefits of embodied learning.  One study he discusses suggests that grounding metaphors provide opportunities for authentic and meaningful mathematics learning.  For example, actions like combining, removing, sharing, and repeating physical objects directly relates to understanding addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication respectively.  Playing board games is another example provided: rolling dice and moving along the pathway in the game can help students understand the concept of the number line.  Algebraic thinking and equation solving can be developed by comparing the equals sign to the fulcrum of a balance scale and operations such as subtraction can be modelled by taking similarly weighted items off both sides of the balance at the same time.  Nathan discusses a final example where students learn to classify angles as acute, obtuse, right, etc. by using a Wii-type device where students spread their arms apart to create the angle and different colors display on a screen, with different types of angles represented by different colors.

STOP#3: Grounding Metaphors

While reading Nathan’s examples of embodied mathematical learning, I thought about examples from my own teaching practice I already use, and how I might try to integrate more of this kind of learning into other math units/topics.  I always start my grade 9 algebra unit with doing a few days of balance scale problems (and they seem to really enjoy them) before I even tell the students that what they’re doing is algebra.  I also do an activity where students walk forwards and backwards to simulate moving along a number line to add and subtract integers.  For example, if you have 2 – (-5), you stand on 2, turn around backwards to represent “negative” and then walk backwards to represent “subtract” – what you’re actually doing is moving in the positive direction so you’d end up at 7!

 

Questions for Further Thought:

Do you agree or disagree with Nathan’s definition of learning as “lasting changes in our behavior”?

What “short-circuits” in understanding have you observed in your own students, and how might an embodied learning approach help them develop deeper understanding?

What grounding metaphors have you found useful in your teaching practice?  Which math topics do you find most difficult to teach using grounding metaphors or connect to everyday life experiences?