Learning analytics of embodied design: Enhancing synergy

Abstract

Two nascent lines of inquiry in the Learning Sciences are contributing to research and development of interactive digital resources for STEM education. One is embodied design, a research program to create theoretically driven and empirically validated technological learning environments where students ground STEM concepts in new perceptual capacity they develop through solving motor-control problems. The other is multimodal learning analytics, a methodological approach to investigating learning processes through gathering, analyzing, triangulating, and presenting data from multiple measures of students’ actions and sensations. This special issue looks at a set of articles reporting on pioneering efforts to coordinate these parallel lines of inquiry into a theoretically coherent research program informing an integrated design framework. The following editorial frames and motivates these research efforts, surveys the set of papers, and speculates on possible futures for the learning analytics of embodied design.