Effects of Embodied Learning on Students' Understanding of Randomness in Data Science

• In Event: Students' Perceptions and Experiences in Mathematics

Abstract

Distinct from traditional theories in psychology and education, embodied cognition theory values the body of the learner as an active participatory agent in shaping cognitive processes and provides theoretical grounds for embodied learning. Given the promising utility of embodied activities, we designed an instructional intervention to test how different levels of embodiment impacted learning of the shuffle() function in R and the concept of randomness in a concrete-to-abstract instructional sequence. We found that students who physically reenacted the hands-on demonstrations in the concrete instructional video gained a better understanding of the shuffle() function in R and the concept of randomness from a subsequent live-coding video than those who only watched the hands-on video or watched a live-coding video.

Authors

• Icy Yunyi Zhang, University of California - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author

• Alice Xu, University of California - Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author

• James W. Stigler, University of California - Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author