Foundations of Embodied Learning

Foundations of Embodied Learning advances learning, instruction, and the design of educational technologies by rethinking the learner as an integrated system of mind, body, and environment. Body-based processes-direct physical, social, and environmental interactions-are constantly mediating intellectual performance, sensory stimulation, communication abilities, and other conditions of learning. This book's coherent, evidence-based framework articulates principles of grounded and embodied learning for design and its implications for curriculum, classroom instruction, and student formative and summative assessment for scholars and graduate students of educational psychology, instructional design and technology, cognitive science, the learning sciences, and beyond.

Mitchell J. Nathan is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Learning Sciences in the Educational Psychology Department, Director of the MAGIC Lab, and a Fellow of the Teaching Academy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. Professor Nathan is a Fellow of the International Society of the Learning Sciences, where he was a founding officer, and is one of the founding members of EMIC, a consortium of scholars, designers, and educators interested in embodied mathematical imagination and cognition. He lives in Madison WI with his two daughters, who keep him embodied and quite grounded.

Part 1: A Fundamental Problem for Education and a Proposed Solution 1. We are Learning Creatures who Struggle to Design Effective Education Systems: Framing the Problem 2. Why We Need Grounded and Embodied Learning to Improve Education 3. Understanding Grounded and Embodied Learning 4. Forms of Embodiment and Embodied Learning Part 2: The GEL Timescale 5. Embodiment in the Conscious Spectrum 6. Grounding and Embodied Learning in the Conscious Spectrum 7. Biological Basics of Learning 8. Grounding and Embodied Learning in the Biological and 9. Sociocultural Bases of Learning 10. Sociocultural Learning as Common Ground and Engaged Participation Part 3: Implications of GEL for Education Practice and Research 11. Trans-Scale Considerations 12. Grounded and Embodied Learning in the Classroom and Beyond