Recharge The Body Learns

Educational Technology today is often presented as a radical departure from the traditional teaching tired practices. But in a way, at least, faithfully follows the conventions of the time chalk-and-blackboard: EdTech addresses only the student's head, leaving the rest of the body out. The treatment of the mind and body as separate is an ancient and powerful in Western culture idea. But this venerable trope is facing a challenge of a generation of researchers-cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, philosophy-even claiming we think with and through our bodies. Even the most abstract mathematical or literary concepts, these researchers argue, are understood in terms of the experience of our senses and move ourselves through space. This approach, known as "embodied cognition," is becoming a lens through which to look at educational technology. The field work shows promising signs that incorporate body movements-even subtle can improve learning is done in computers. For example, Margaret Chan and John Black of the Teachers College of Columbia University have shown that physically manipulate an animation of a roller coaster sliding cars up and down the tracks and see the resulting changes in kinetic and potential energy, as shown in a bar graph-helps students to understand how gravity and better than static images and text on screen energy. This approach incorporates education, the authors have found, is especially useful for younger students and those working in the most difficult problems. In intuitive domains, such as physics, the body rooted learning allows students to develop a "feel" for the concept being described, a physical sensation that is more understandable and compelling to a concept that is still a mental, abstract entity. Body movements provide memory with additional signals representing and retrieving knowledge learned. In similar experiments, led by Insook Han, Hanyang Cyber ​​University in South Korea, students learn about the concept of force by using a joystick to move two gears shown on a computer screen. Studies have shown that allowing users to physically manipulate the gears thereby improve your memory and performance troubleshooting issues associated with force. The richest of perceptual experience provided by the computer program, the greater understanding and retention of the material for students. One reason that affects the body enhances learning is that body movements provide memory with additional signals representing and retrieving knowledge learned. Action in response to information in addition to just watch or listen to it, create a richer trace memory and alternative materials to recover the memory later tracks. Movement can also allow users to shed some of their "cognitive load" the burden imposed by the need to keep track of information. Instead of trying to imagine what it would do if the gear moves, tax mental activity, students can allow your hands to do it and see what happens, freeing mental resources to think more deeply about what is happening. This is more or less as we have all learned to drive. From an evolutionary perspective, our brains developed to help solve problems in the real world, moving through space and manipulation of real objects. More abstract forms of thought, such as mathematics and written language, came later, and reused older brain regions originally devoted to processing input from the senses and the motor system. This reuse is apparent in the frequency with which we use physically grounded metaphors to express abstract ideas: tell is like moving through space ("the countdown approaches zero"); accommodate two different principles is like "balance" on a scale. Bringing the body back to the equation can provide students with a useful way station between concrete referents and relentless abstraction. Physically acting knowledge to learn or solve problems makes conceptual metaphors employed by our brains into a literal reality.