Embodied Learning as Collect Experience for Young Children’s Science Learning

• In Event: Learning and the Growing Body: Embodied Learning Research Across Different Age Groups

Abstract

Embodied learning is crucial for young children as it integrates physical activity with cognitive processes, enhancing engagement, retention, and understanding of complex concepts (Bergen, 2009). Additionally, young children engaging in embodied activities collaborate with peers to explore the world. For example, in play, children use body movement to communicate and demonstrate ideas. The Learning in Embodied Activity Framework (LEAF) focuses on studying embodiment as both individual and collective phenomena (Danish et al., 2020). Building on LEAF, I focused on young children learning complex science within embodied learning activities in a Mixed Reality environment. Thus, I aim to explore the research question: How do multimodal interactions support young children's collaborative learning of complex systems
Design
In this research, activities were designed to engage students with the GEM-STEP mixed-reality technology (Danish et al., 2022). The technology can track students’ movements and turn these movements into movements of a bee character on a shared screen in front of the classroom (Danish et al., 2020; Tu & Danish, 2023). The curriculum included six sessions, each lasting about 40 minutes.
Method
The participants were 16 first and second-grade students in the Midwestern U.S. All classroom activities were videotaped. I leverage both content analysis and interaction. I first coded all students embodied movement, and their understanding of target science content of the video data. Then I applied Interaction Analysis (Jordan & Henderson, 1995) to analyze how collective build their shared understanding of honeybee system with interacting with system, classroomates and facilitator.
Major Findings
First, I identified two significant sources of interaction: 1) intra-group (bee group) and 2) between-groups (the embodying a bee or farmer group and the observing scientist group). In the Bee group, students utilize body movement to create a shared strategy, direct their peers, and adjust their movements to reach their goals. Aside from the bee groups, scientists did not interact directly with GEM-STEP. Instead, they tended to make summaries of their observations of the embodying group and point out a new feature of GEM-STEP
In addition, I found that in facilitators support student’s learning in two ways. First, the researcher uses prompts to support students’ collaborative learning within the Mixed Reality environment. With these prompts, students either 1) collectively adjust their embodiment to reach a goal, 2) pay attention to other groups’ work, and 3) leverage resources such as what was happening in the GEM-STEP environment to adjust their plan. In addition, the facilitators’ prompt also encourages students to talk about their mechanism reasoning in debrief or summaries. simulation.
Then with interaction analysis, I would present a segment showing a student’s collective explore and adjust their movement to collectively make a model in STEP, and then explain the mechanism of the honeybee system. Within GEM-STEP, students consistently adjust their relative movement (e.g. flying path, flowers visited) to make pollination happen.
Scholarly Significance
This study advances understanding of embodied learning by demonstrating how multimodal interactions enhance young children’s science learning, highlighting the critical role of collective embodied experience and skilled facilitation in early childhood classroom.

Author

• Xintian Tu-Shea, University at Buffalo - SUNY