embodied cognition – Education & Teacher Conferences

Doubting My Doubts; The Case of Gesture and Embodied Cognition

Andrew Watson

March 02, 2025

Doubting My Doubts; The Case of Gesture and Embodied Cognition

The more time I spend hearing “research-informed educational advice,” the more I worry about the enticing words “research-informed.”

Many MANY people toss around the phrase “research says…”; all too often, even a brief investigation suggests that research really doesn’t say that.

For this reason, I find myself slower to get excited about new “research-based” teaching ideas than many of my colleagues…even colleagues whom I admire, respect, and generally trust.

For instance: lots of scholars are investigating the field of embodied cognition and — more specifically — of using gestures to promote learning.

I’m certainly open to the idea that combining gestures with words and visuals will improve learning. And: I want to know A LOT more about the specifics of this idea:

Who is making these gestures? Teachers? Students? Actors in videos?
What kind of gestures are they? “Deictic” or”iconic”? Rehearsed or improvised?
Does the strategy work well in all disciplines/grades/cultures?

And so forth.

I’d also love to see some straightforwardly convincing research to support the answers to those questions.

So, for instance, I wrote a post about students using gestures to learn about Brownian motion. While the outline of the study made sense to me, it…

… didn’t have a control group,

… chose a topic easily translated into gestures, and

… measured “learning” 2 days later. (Does 2 days count as learning?)

While I’m glad I read the study, and appreciate some of its nuances, I don’t think it’s a slam dunk.

At the same time, I should turn some of my skeptical energy towards myself.

In other words: given all of my doubts, I should also be ready to doubt my own doubts. Maybe the wisdom of the crowd should outweigh my own habitual caution here. Maybe I’m so invested in my skeptic’s persona that I’m subconsciously unwilling to be persuaded…

Enter the Steelman

Because I doubt my doubts, I’m always on the lookout for EXCELLENT research contradicting my outlier point of view. I genuinely WANT to have my errors pointed out to me.

For that reason, I was delighted to find a highly touted study about teaching physics with embodied cognition.

My source here — published by the Educational Endowment Foundation — looks for the very best evidence supporting all sorts of cognitive science-based teaching advice: interleaving, retrieval practice, schemas, and so forth.

Of the 26 studies they found looking at embodied cognition, one stood out for its excellence. (In their rating system, it’s the only only one they rated “high priority.”) If the EEF, and all the wise scholars behind this report, find this study persuasive, it’s likely to be among the best research I can find.

In other words: I’m not analyzing a straw man here. This study is the “steelman.”

Playground Physics

The idea behind this study sounds both sensible and fun. Many of the abstract concepts studied in physics class are acted out quite concretely — that is, they are EMBODIED — when our children get to the playground.

If we could connect abstract classroom physics with embodied playground phyics, that approach could be really helpful.

This study begins with a good idea…and an ENORMOUS sample size. Over 3400 (!) students were in the initial sample; after (unusually high) attrition, that number dropped to about 1300 — roughly 800 in the “playground physics” group, and 500 in the control group.

The researchers wanted to see if the students in the playground group would a) learn more physics, b) feel more engaged, and c) feel more motivated — all compared to the control group.

The special “playground physics” program begins with a training session for the teachers, and includes curricular materials.

Crucially, playground physics also includes a phone app that students use to analyze their own motion:

“Using the app, users record videos of themselves and their friends engaging in physical play, and the app generates graphs of distance traveled, speed, direction, and kinetic and potential energy. As users watch the video, they see graphs of their movement unfolding. Users can pause to examine where they are moving fastest or slowest, where a force is pushing or pulling, and where their kinetic and potential energies are at their highest and lowest points. This is intended to support conversations grounded in the children’s physical experience”

Honestly, the whole experience sound really interesting!

Persistent Doubts

Although I tried to find a Steelman Study to support the case for Team Embodied Cognition, I’m still not persuaded.

I have two substantial concerns:

First:

This study does not measure the benefits of embodied cognition for learning physics.

Instead, it measures the benefits of embodied cognition PLUS cool tech gadgetry for learning physics. In fact, the study is published in a journal that focuses on technology in education.

Yes, the students learned more — but the extra learning could have come from the app (so much fun with video!) or from the embodied cognition (moving is so cool!) or both. We just don’t know.

I am not the only person pointing out this concern. The study’s authors say several times that they don’t know what the “mechanism” is that created additional learning. In other words: they do not claim that the embodiment matter more than the tech — or that it mattered at all. They don’t know.

To be persuaded by research into the use of gestures, I want to see a study that singles out the gestures; it should — in the lingo of research — “isolate the variable.” This one doesn’t.

Second:

When we compare two groups, we want them to be close enough to each other to be good proxies for each other. I’m not sure we can say that for this study.

A) The teachers of Playground Physics received extra PD; the teachers in the control group didn’t. Did the PD itself make the difference? We don’t know.

B) The study used a “business-as-usual control group.” That is: control group teachers just did what they always did. Teachers and students in the Playground Physics group got a Shiny New Thing. Was it the novelty that made the difference? We don’t know.

C) The Playground Physics group spent 15.5 hours studying physics; the control group spent 13.2 hours. The study’s authors write that this difference isn’t “statistically significant.” But — as a classroom teacher — I’m thinking two hours and fifteen minutes of additional practice would be significant, even if it isn’t “significant.” *

Because the study doesn’t isolate the variable (that’s the first concern) and the two groups don’t sufficiently resemble each other (that’s the second concern), I’m still stuck thinking: “this study doesn’t persuade me that embodied cognition is a thing.”

And — as you recall — I looked at this study because a respected group said it’s the best one they found.

TL;DR

I’m still looking for the study that makes the Embodied Cognition approach to teaching persuasive enough for me to recommend it to others.

I haven’t found it yet…but I haven’t given up hope.

By the way: if you know of such a study, please send it my way!

* I spoke with a stats-whisperer friend, who agrees with me that this simply isn’t a reasonable claim.

Margolin, J., Ba, H., Friedman, L. B., Swanlund, A., Dhillon, S., & Liu, F. (2021). Examining the impact of a play-based middle school physics program. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 53(2), 125-139.

“Embodied Cognition” in Action: Using Gestures to Teach Science

Andrew Watson

September 26, 2023

“Embodied Cognition” in Action: Using Gestures to Teach Science

Here’s a topic that has gotten lots of enthusiastic attention in recent years: embodied cognition.

As the name suggests, that phrase means — basically — “thinking with your body, not just your mind.”

Because your brain is a part of your body (it is, in fact, physically attached to your body), the concept makes rough-and-ready sense.

In at least two ways, this perspective has well-established research support.

First, physical fitness improves cognition — at least, up to a point.

We don’t need to be Olympic athletes to learn chemistry.

But if I’m conspicuously out of shape, the related health detriments harm my brain just as they harm my lungs; that harm makes learning harder. (If you want to get your neuroscience geek on, look up “brain-derived neurotrophic factor.”)

Second, some degree of physical movement during class moderates students’ alertness levels.

If my students are nodding off or bouncing giddily, I’ll get them up on their feet for a bit to get the blood moving (or to burn off some of that excess energy).

In these ways, the body’s physical state obviously matters for cognition.

And yet, over the years, I’ve had two basic concerns about broader claims within this field. Let me try to explain…

Better Definitions, Please

Scientific conclusions typically require precise measurements; precise measurements require precise defintions.

That is: I can tell you that this rock weighs more than that rock because I can measure it (on my scale) according to well-defined measurements (pounds or kilos).

But: if I want to say that this student is paying more attention than that student, I need a really good definition of attention, and a way to measure it. “This student demonstrates 6 attention units, whereas that one demonstrates only 4.”

Sadly, the concept of “embodied cognition” invites definitional muddle.

For instance: is mindful meditation “embodied cognition”? (It often includes a focus on the body.)

More broadly, here’s Wikipedia’s entry on embodied cognition. I’m not gonna lie; I get lost really quickly when I read that entry.

So, problem #1: I don’t always understand exactly what the claims about embodied cognition really are.

More Research, Please

I think I do understand one of the claims under the “embodied cognition” umbrella. I think the claim is:

Adding the right gestures to teaching helps students learn.

That is: using gestures (“embodied”) helps students think and learn (“cognition”).

A recent study in Australia pursued just this line of inquiry.

In this study, 33 students (aged 12-14) learned about Brownian motion.

Half of them saw a typical lesson — a powerpoint presentation, group discussion, worksheets — taught by an experienced teacher.

The other half saw the same lesson (powerpoint presentation, etc.) with additional, carefully designed hand gestures.

By the way, the teacher used the hand getures, and encouraged the students to do so as well.

Two days later, the students who saw and used the meaningful gestures (a.k.a., “iconic” gestures) scored a lot higher on a simple quiz. (For stats folks, the Cohen’s d was 0.98, which is really big!)

Now, I admit to some concerns about this study:

33 is a very modest sample size.

“2 days later” isn’t really learning.

Most important: there is no “active control group.”

That is: the researchers didn’t compare iconic gestures with another new strategy. Instead, they compared gestures to “business as usual.”

“Business as usual” isn’t often a very persuasive control group; after all, the novelty might explain the effect.

These concerns aside, I do think the study — combined with other similar studies — gives us some reason to think that the right gestures just might help students learn better.

I was especially glad to see an emphasis on students’ use of the gestures. This variable hasn’t gotten much attention in other studies I’ve seen, so I’m encouraged to see it getting greater visibility.

Lingering Questions

And yet, I STILL want more research. Here’s why:

Problem #2: I don’t think we have nearly enough research (yet) to establish useful principles for instructive gestures.

In other words: these gestures probably helped 13-year-olds learn about states of matter.

But: what sorts of gestures can help what ages learn about what topics?

Specifically:

If I want my students to know the difference between “comedy” and “tragedy” (and I do!), can gestures help with those concepts? How should I think about desiging those gestures?

What sorts of topics in a history class would benefit from gestures?

Should foreign language teachers have students make specific gestures — say — when they learn different declensions? When they learn masculine or feminine nouns?

I’m not trying to be difficult or grouchy when I ask these questions. I’m trying to understand how seeming success in this one case could be translated to other topics, other disciplines, and other age groups.

Growing Concerns

More broadly, I worry that “iconic gestures/embodied cognition” will become the Next Thing We’re All Talking About.

Teachers will get instruction about Iconic Gestures, be required to use them, and be evaluated on their use … even though we don’t have even basic guidelines on how to create or use them. (At least, as far as I know.)

For instance: the topic of Brownian motion was chosen, in part, because it is “susceptible to being taught using specific gesticulation.”

What about topics that aren’t obviously susceptible?

In fact, if you look at the gestures used during the lesson, they don’t seem too far off from the sorts of gestures that teachers might make spontaneously.

Are “iconic gestures” simply “the sorts of gestures we’d use anyway, but formally planned, scripted, practiced, and repeated by students”?

If yes, does the entire topic of iconic gestures change from “revolutionary” to “a modest technical update to something we’re doing anyway”?

I’m entirely open to the possibility that gestures (“embodied”) can help students learn (“cognition”) … but we need more research to know for sure.

TL;DR

Because the brain is in the body, the body’s physical state obviously matters for learning.

This recent study from Australia (and others) suggest that well crafted hand gestures can help students learn some concepts.

However, the principles that guide us in the creation and use of those hand gestures are not yet well mapped. So: we just don’t know how widely this technique might benefit teachers, schools, and students.

If someone insists you start using gestures because “research in embodied cognition says you must!”, ask to see the specific study.

Bentley, B., Walters, K., & Yates, G. C. (2023). Using iconic hand gestures in teaching a year 8 science lesson. Applied Cognitive Psychology.

Teachers’ Gestures Can Help Students Learn

Andrew Watson

October 05, 2021

Teachers’ Gestures Can Help Students Learn

Over the years, I’ve written about the importance of “embodied cognition.”

In other words: we know with our brains, and we know with and through our bodies.

Scholars such as Dr. Susan Goldin-Meadow and Dr. Sian Beilock have done splendid and helpful work in this field.

Their research suggests that students might learn more when they make the right kind of gesture.

Other scholars have shown that — in online lectures — the right kind of pointing helps too.

What about the teachers‘ gestures? Can we help students learn in the way we use our hands?

Dr. Celeste Pilegard wanted to find out…

Steamboats, East and West

Pilegard invited college students to watch brief video lectures. The topic: the differences between Eastern and Western steamboats. (You think I’m joking. I’m not joking.)

These students watched one of four versions:

In the first version, the teacher’s gestures focused on the surface features of the steamboats themselves (how deep they sit in the water, for instance).

In the second version, the gestures focused on the structure of the lesson (“Now I’m talking about Eastern steamboats, and NOW I’m talking about Western steamboats.”).

Third version: gestures emphasized BOTH surface AND structural features.

Fourth version: a control group saw a video with neutral, content-free gestures.

Did those gestures make a difference for learning?

Pilegard, in fact, measured learning in two ways:

Did the students remember the facts?

Could the students apply those facts by drawing inferences?

So, what did she discover?

No, but Yes

Researchers typically make predictions about their findings.

In this case, Pilegard predicted that neither the surface gestures (about steamboats) nor the structural gestures (about the logic of the lesson) would help students remember facts.

But, she predicted that the structural gestures would help students draw inferences. (“If a steamboat operates on a shallow river, what does that tell you about the pressure of the steamboat’s engine?”) Surface gestures, she predicted, would not improve inferences.

Sure enough, Pilegard was 2 for 2.

Watching gestures didn’t help students remember facts any better. However, students who watched structural gestures (but not surface gestures) did better on inference questions. (Stats types: the Cohen’s d was 0.39; an impressive bonus for such a small intervention.)

When Pilegard repeated the experiment with a video on “innate vs. acquired immunity,” she got the same results.

Implications and Cautions

As teachers, we know that every little bit helps. When we use gestures to reinforce the underlying logical structure of our explanations, doing so might help students learn more.

As we plan, therefore, we should be consciously aware of our lesson’s logical structure, and think a bit about how gestures might reinforce that structure.

At the same time, regular readers know that all the usual cautions apply:

We should look at groups of studies, not just one study.

Pilegard’s research focused on college students. Will this strategy work with other students? We don’t know for sure.

These video lessons were quite short: under two minutes each. Will this strategy work over longer periods of time? We don’t know for sure.

In other words — this research offers a promising strategy. And, we need more research with students who resemble our own classrooms and lessons that last longer to have greater confidence.

I myself do plan to think about gestures for upcoming lessons. But I won’t ignore all the other teaching strategies (retrieval practice, cognitive load management, etc.). Here’s hoping that future research can point the way…

By the way:

Teachers often ask how they can get copies of research to study it for themselves.

Easy answer #1: Google Scholar.

If that doesn’t work, I recommend easy answer #2: email the researcher.

In this case, I emailed Dr. Pilegard asking for a copy of the study — and she emailed it to me 11 minutes later.

In honor of her doing so, I’m creating the Pilegard Award for Prompt Generosity in Sharing Research with People who Email You Out of the Blue.

No doubt it will be much coveted.

Andrew Watson

February 02, 2021

Does MOVEMENT Help LEARNING?

In the exaggerated stereotype of an obsessively traditional classroom, students sit perfectly silent and perfectly still. They listen, and watch, and do nothing else.

Few classrooms truly function that way.

But, how far should we go in the other direction? Can teachers — and should teachers — encourage noise and movement to help students learn?

In recent years, the field of embodied cognition has explored the ways that we think with our bodies.

That is: movement itself might help students learn.

Of course, this general observation needs to be explored and understood in very specific ways. Otherwise, we might get carried away. (About a year ago, for instance, one teacher inspired a Twitter explosion by having his students read while pedaling exercycles. I’ve spent some time looking at research on this topic, and concluded … we just don’t know if this strategy will help or not.)

So, let’s get specific.

Moving Triangles

An Australian research team worked with 60 ten- and eleven-year olds learning about triangles. (These students studied in the intermediate math track; they attended a private high school, with higher-than-usual SES. These “boundary conditions” might matter.)

Students learned about isosceles triangles, and the relationships between side-lengths and angles, and so forth.

20 of the students studied in a “traditional way“: reading from the book.

20 studied by watching a teacher use software to manipulate angles and lengths of sides.

And, 20 studied by using that software themselves. That is: they moved their own hands.

Researchers wanted to know:

Did these groups differ when tested on similar (nearly identical) triangle problems?

Did they differ when tested on somewhat different problems?

And, did they rate their mental effort differently?

In other words: did seeing movement help students learn better? Did performing the movement themselves help?

The Envelope, Please

The software clearly helped. The actual movement sort-of helped.

Students who interacted with the software themselves, and those who watched the teachers do so, did better on all the triangle problems. (Compared — that is — to students who learned the traditional way.)

And, they said it took less mental effort to answer the questions.

HOWEVER:

Students who used the software themselves did no better than the students who watched the teachers use it. (Well: they did better on the nearly identical problems, but not the newer problems that we care more about.)

In other words: movement helped these students learn this material — but it didn’t really matter if they moved themselves, or if they watched someone else move.

The Bigger Picture

Honestly: research into embodied cognition could someday prove to make a big difference in schools.

Once we’ve done enough of these studies — it might be dozens, it might be hundreds — we’ll have a clearer picture explaining which movements help which students learn what material.

For the time being, we should watch this space. And — fingers crossed — within the next 5 years we’ll have an Embodied Cognition conference at Learning and the Brain.

Until then: be wise and cautious, and use your instincts. Yes, sometimes movement might help. But don’t get carried away by dramatic promises. We need more facts before we draw strong conclusions.

Bokosmaty, S., Mavilidi, M. F., & Paas, F. (2017). Making versus observing manipulations of geometric properties of triangles to learn geometry using dynamic geometry software. Computers & Education, 113, 313-326.

Beyond the Mouse: Pointing in Online Lectures

Andrew Watson

July 05, 2019

Beyond the Mouse: Pointing in Online Lectures

You know, of course, that the right kind of movement can help students learn. The nascent field of “embodied cognition” works to explore the strategies that work most effectively.

Here’s a collection of resources.

And, here’s a recent blog post about kindergarteners moving to learn the number line.

You also know that online learners easily get distracted, often because they multitask. (I say “they” because you and I would never do such things.)

This recent post shows that even folding laundry — a harmless-seeming activity — reduces online learning.

What happens when we put these two research pools together?

Specifically: can movement reduce distraction, and increase learning, for online learners?

Benefits of Online Pointing?

Several researchers — including the estimable Richard Mayer — wanted to answer that question.

Specifically, they wanted to know: do pointing gestures made by the teacher help online students learn?

They had students watch an online lecture (about “neural transmission,” naturally).

For the first group of students, the teacher pointed at specific places on relevant diagrams.

For the second group, the teacher pointed generally toward the diagrams (but not at specific pants of them).

For the third, the teacher moved his hands about, without pointing specifically.

For the fourth, the teacher didn’t move his hands.

Do different pointing strategies help or hurt?

Benefits Indeed

Sure enough, pointing matters.

Students in the first group spent more time looking at the relevant parts of the diagrams.

They did better on a test that day.

And — most important — they did better than the other groups on a test a week later.

Now: a week isn’t exactly learning. We want our students to remember facts and concepts for months. (Preferably, forever.)

But, the fact that the memories had lasted a week suggests it’s MUCH likelier they’ll last longer still.

Practical Implications

If your classroom life includes online teaching, or teaching with videos, try to include specific pointing gestures to focus students on relevant information. At least with this student population, such gestures really helped.

By the way, this study doesn’t answer an interesting and important question: “does student movement as they watch online lectures help or hurt their learning?”

We know from the study cited above that irrelevant movement (like folding laundry) doesn’t help. But: should students mirror your gestures as they watch videos? Should you give them particular gestures to emulate?

We don’t know yet…but I hope future research helps us find an answer.

[A Specific] Movement Helped [Specific] Students Learn [A Specific] Thing

Andrew Watson

May 23, 2019

[A Specific] Movement Helped [Specific] Students Learn [A Specific] Thing

Can Movement Teach Math?

Here’s a vital question: How can we help young students learn math better?

We’ve got decades of research showing that children who understand a number line do better at many math tasks than those who don’t. In fact, when we teach them to understand the number line, they get better at those math tasks.

Researchers in Germany wondered if movement might help kindergarteners understand the basic principles of a number line.

That is: By moving their whole bodies to the left, they could see numbers get smaller. By moving their whole bodies to the right, they could see numbers get bigger.

Does this kind of bodily movement help children think about numbers and math?

The short answer: yes.

When students compared numbers simply by checking boxes, they didn’t get better at various numerical measurements. When they compared numbers by moving left or right on a dance mat, they did — at least on some measurements.

The specific application of this principle will depend on you and your students. But, to get the conversation started, we can say:

Having kindergarteners manipulate a number line by moving left and right helped them understand some basic math better.

Specifics Matter

I’ve seen lots of enthusiasm lately about movement in classrooms. While I’m all in favor of allowing — even encouraging movement — I think we need to be precise and careful about the arguments for doing so.

The study cited above does NOT show that “movement helps students learn.” Instead, it shows that a particular movement helped particular students learn a particular topic.

Remember, earlier research had showed the importance of the number line. The researchers weren’t testing movement just because movement seemed cool. They tested it because the physical reality of a number line makes this idea so plausible.

Imagine, instead, that the study methodology described above were used to teach students about colors.

Of course, unlike the number line, colors aren’t an especially spatial concept. So, it’s not obvious that this same teaching technique would have benefits for this kind of learning goal.

To be clear: my point is not that movement is a bad idea. Instead, we should understand clearly why this movement will benefit these students while they learn this topic.

Maybe a particular movement fits with a particular cognitive process — as in the number-line example.

Maybe movement helps re-energize droopy students.

Maybe you’ve seen thoughtful research showing that students did better learning parts of speech (say) when they did hand gestures along with them.

In each of these cases, you’ve got a good reason to incorporate movement into the lesson plan. We should not, however, default to a sweeping statement that students must move to learn.

Your own teaching (and learning) experiences may show that — at times — quiet, motionless concentration create the very best learning environment.

Resources to Get Started with “Embodied Cognition”:

Andrew Watson

August 15, 2018

Resources to Get Started with “Embodied Cognition”:

The field of embodied cognition has gotten increasing attention in recent years.

The short version is: because our brains are attached to our bodies — in fact, our brains are a part of our bodies — bodies can help brains learn.

The right kind of gesture, for example, can increase math learning.

Recent Reseach

Susan Goldin-Meadow has written thoughtfully about the importance of gestures for learning.

Frederic Vallee-Tourangeau has shown how that the use of physical objects can lead students to flashes of insight.

Sian Beilock–one of my favorite researchers–has written an introductory book called How the Body Knows Its Mind.

Most recently, the Learning Scientists have put together a collection of helpful resources to investigate this topic.

If you’re looking for new ways to help your students learn, you’ll find lots to love there.

Feeling the Possibilities: Virtual Reality and Teaching

Andrew Watson

March 17, 2018

Feeling the Possibilities: Virtual Reality and Teaching

Regular readers of this blog know that I like technology, but I’m not easily wowed about its educational uses. From my perspective, many “you just have to try this” technologies fail to produce nearly as much learning as they promise.

(Some of my concerns show up here and here. But: I’m a champion of laptop notes here.)

At an evolutionary level, our species evolved interacting with real, live other people. Our basic perceptual and emotional systems often work best when we’re learning with and from them.

All that being said, I’m REALLY interested in the educational possibilities that this new technology might offer.

As you’ll see in the video below, combining virtual reality (VR) with advanced haptic feedback produces remarkably persuasive visual and physical experiences.

The video’s host — a professed VR skeptic — is obviously giddy by the end of his trial.

Potential VR+haptics pedagogy

Several kinds of learning might well be much more persuasive (and interesting) with this VR/haptics combination. Physics problems with mass and momentum and magnetism, for example, lend themselves to this kind of exploration.

(As you’ll see in the video, our host can feel the weight of the virtual rock he lifts.)

Another possibility: As our research into embodied cognition gets better, we might be able to translate those strategies into VR/haptics pedagogy. (For an introduction to embodied cognition, see Sian Beilock’s book How the Body Knows Its Mind.)

For example, Susan Goldin-Meadow has done considerable research showing that different hand motions improve mathematics learning. These gloves just might make such problems more physically — and therefore cognitively — persuasive.

Just watch the video; you’ll see what I mean. (By the way: I’m not endorsing any of the products advertised here. They’re an unavoidable part of the video.)

Andrew Watson

January 06, 2017

17 Ways to Fold Sheep

Here’s a mental puzzle to start off your day:

Imagine you’ve got 17 sheep and four pens to put them in. Just for fun, you decide to put an odd number of sheep in each pen. How would you proceed?

As it turns out, this is quite a difficult problem. You might be inclined to tell me it’s impossible. The secret is…well, I won’t tell you the secret just yet. (Don’t look now, but there are some solutions down below.)

Your ability to solve this problem might depend on internal, mental characteristics. For example: more creative people typically find a solution more rapidly than less creative people.

At the same time, your ability – and, crucially, your students’ ability – might well depend on the external, physical actions used to solve the problem.

If you give your students a tablet on which they can write, draw, and erase, the chance that they’ll find a solution remains low. However, if you give them pipe-cleaner pens and little plastic sheep, the odds get a lot better.

In one study by Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau [1], 0% of college students who used the tablet figured out the solution, whereas 43% of those who used the pipe-cleaners and sheeplets did so. (In a slightly different research paradigm, 17% of tablet users found solutions, vs. 54% of model builders who did.)

That is: manipulating meaningful objects increased the likelihood of success.

* * * * *

In recent years, researchers have increasingly focused on the topic of embodied cognition: the influence that our bodies (not just our brains) have on our thinking.

Susan Goldin-Meadow and Sian Beilock, for example, have studied the role that gestures play in cognition [2]. In one of their studies, a particular set of gestures helped some students learn math problems more effectively. (Intriguingly, students who said the wrong words but made the right gestures tended to learn more quickly than other students.)

Beilock’s recent book How the Body Knows its Mind: The Surprising Power of the Physical Environment to Influence How You Think and Feel offers a substantial introduction to this fascinating topic.

Vallée-Tourangeau’s just-published research – both the “17 Sheep” problem, and another study into mental math [3] – fits nicely under the heading of embodied cognition. After all, students who use their bodies a particular way think more effectively than students who use their bodies a different way.

* * * * *

What practical teaching advice flows from these insights?

First, we should recognize that this research is in very early stages, and specific teaching strategies haven’t yet been tested. At this point, we’re making plausible extrapolations, not relying on well-tested hypotheses. (Unless, that is, you’re teaching students how to fold sheep creatively.)

Second, this research pool encourages teachers to translate problems into objects both for step-by-step routines and for problems that require new insight.

Step-by-step routines: Vallée-Tourangeau’s mental math study shows that students who could move tiles around as they added digits in their head accomplished this task much more effectively than those who were forbidden from moving their hands.

Mental addition is – for most college students – quite a routine cognitive task. And yet, by combining bodily movement with cognitive efforts, students noticeably improved their performance.

Problems that require new insight: The solution to the “17 Sheep” problem requires a sudden AHA!, a flash of insight: the sheep pens might overlap with each other.

When Vallée-Tourangeau’s students thought about the “17 Sheep” problem in two dimensions, they had very little luck. When they thought about that same problem in three dimensions, however, that extra dimension prompted new – and successful – thought patterns. That is: physical objects made new insights easier to uncover.

This study suggests that we can help our students leap to surprising new ways of thinking by inviting them to move physical objects around.

Of course, the specifics of this suggestion have yet to be researched. They will doubtless depend on the subject you’re teaching, the students you’re teaching, and your own comfort with this kind of inventive extrapolation.

Despite these uncertainties, these researchers offer us exciting new approaches for teaching both basic procedures and complex insights.

Our students may well benefit from such strategies, and from our own classroom experiments.

Vallée-Tourangeau, F., Steffensen, S. V., Vallée-Tourangeau, G., & Sirota, M. (2016). Insight with hands and things. Acta Psychologica, 170, 195-205. [Link]
Goldin-Meadow, S., & Beilock, S. L. (2010). Action’s influence on thought: The case of gesture. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(6), 664-674. [Link]
Vallée-Tourangeau, F., Sirota, M., & Vallée-Tourangeau, G. (2016). Interactivity mitigates the impact of working memory depletion on mental arithmetic performance. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 1(1), 26. [Link]

Enter the Steelman

Playground Physics

Persistent Doubts

First:

Second:

TL;DR

Better Definitions, Please

More Research, Please

Lingering Questions

Growing Concerns

TL;DR

Steamboats, East and West

No, but Yes

Implications and Cautions

Moving Triangles

The Envelope, Please

The Bigger Picture

Benefits of Online Pointing?

Benefits Indeed

Practical Implications

Can Movement Teach Math?

Specifics Matter

Recent Reseach

Potential VR+haptics pedagogy

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