The emergence of embodied knowledge through collaborative pose creation in geometry

Embodied learning posits that all concepts, including mathematical concepts, are understood in a perceptual and body-based manner. The coordination of action and language processes can allow students to articulate mathematical insights in a generalizable way, as learners create embodied artifacts of their mathematical reasoning. We examined high school students creating poses that corresponded to conjectures about quadrilaterals. Pose creation consisted of creating a novel sequence of arm motions to capture key relations in a mathematical conjecture. Activities were embedded in a technology-enhanced motion capture system using digital avatars. We examined the types of poses students created and their relation to geometric understandings, emergence of students’ understanding throughout the activities, and differences in performance. We found that students created poses both to illustrate the objects and relations in the conjecture and to show why conjectures were true, and that these pose sequences showed both diversity and consistency across student groups. We observed instances of mathematical insight emerging through pose creation, particularly as students stabilized embodied representations across collaborative interaction. We found that gesturally embodied argumentation, often spurred by pose creation was a process through which meaning could be produced. We also found gestures to be a way to negotiate mathematical terminology, and this negotiation was often a precursor to pose creation. Implications for theories of embodied learning and the design of learning environments are given.