Description
Book SynopsisTransforming Learning Through Tangible Instruction offers a transformative, student-centered approach to higher education pedagogy that integrates embodied cognition into classroom practice. Evidence across disciplines makes clear that people learn with their bodies as well as their brains, but no previous book has provided evidence-based guidance for adopting and refining its practice in colleges and universities. Collecting findings from cognitive science, educational neuroscience, learning theories, and beyond, this volume's unique approachradical yet practical, effective yet low-costwill have profound implications for higher education faculty and administrators engaged in teaching and learning. Seven concise chapters explore how physical objects, hands-on making, active construction, and other elements of body and environment can enhance comprehension, memory, and individual and collaborative learning.
Trade Review"Well-crafted . . . the book’s analysis supported by basic research and informed by personal experience of what can and should be achieved in higher education classrooms offers powerful arguments for teachers in any discipline, but especially those devoted to the enhancement of teaching and learning through creativity and innovation."
—Damian Ruth, Senior Lecturer at Massey University, New Zealand, for Innovations in Education and Teaching International
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Chapter 1. Unnatural Acts: The problem with what we do now
Interlude A: The Crocheted Hyperbolic Plane
Chapter 2. The Embodied Learner: Thinking with the whole self
Interlude B: Molecular Models
Chapter 3. Thinking With Things
Interlude C: Diagrams
Chapter 4. How Things Shape Our Thinking
Interlude D: Qualitative Research Software
Chapter 5. Abstraction Reconsidered
Interlude E. Designing the Future World
Chapter 6. Embodiment Revisited
Interlude F: The Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Design
Chapter 7. A Vibrant Learning Ecosystem
