Entrance Slip (Oct 26) - Embodied Learning

I think bodily experiences can be useful in any subject matter, purely because of the physical representation. When a student experiences movement in learning they associate their movements with what they have learned and it helps to solidify their knowledge. Viewing a physical or drawing representation of theory can be easier to interpret than analytical text. So providing students with images of what we are explaining can help them actually see what we mean rather then have them try and imagine out of thin air. Having a physical object to refer to can be even more valuable as students gain the ability to touch, move, rotate and carefully view details. This again helps them visualize but in 3-D and at all angles, which can sometimes be even more helpful than just a 2-D flat image of a 3-D object. I could use bodily experiences in mathematics as the article discussed by giving students different physical representations of things like curves or even 3-D shapes. Specifically, students could conceptualise how nets transform into 3-D objects by folding the shapes themselves, which would give them both a physical and visual representation which they could touch and see, but it would also give them a bodily experience in the form of movement. The action of folding the prisms themselves would add to their bodily experiences and overall learning. I think it would be difficult to use bodily experiences in chemistry as we deal with things that you cannot physically see at the molecular level, however I could show students physical examples of elements (ie. a copper penny) so they could gain a better understanding of how these elements work in our everyday lives. Students could also understand movement of electrons through physical embodiment. Teachers could physically represent this movement by having students act as electrons moving in a reaction, which would add the bodily experience to their learning.

Often times I feel as thought classrooms lack movement and other embodied ways of learning, however I think sensory experience is used often through images and physical models. I only recently thought of using student movement in relation to electron movement to incorporate bodily experiences into chemistry. Our chemistry pedagogy teacher showed us an example of how to physically represent things like double replacement and single replacement reactions during class, which sparked my knowledge of movement representations in chemistry. Prior to this experience in the teacher program, I myself never experienced movement based learning in my chemistry classes. However, I do think doing labs is another example of ways chemistry teachers try to incorporate bodily experiences into learning, without even realizing that it is an embodied way of learning. So chemistry teachers could perhaps try to incorporate more labs into their curriculum in order to give students more chances at bodily experiences in learning.