Making matters? Unpacking the role of practical aesthetic making activities in the general education through the theoretical lens of embodied learning

Marte S Gulliksen,Andy Hong

doi:10.1080/2331186x.2017.1415108

Marte S Gulliksen, Andy Hong

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2017.1415108

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Abstract

AbstractNew knowledge on cognition and learning generated in the various fields of neuroscience is now being incorporated into the learning sciences. This development might have broad significance for the theoretical development of the field of education, in particular leading to a renewed and more nuanced understanding of learning as an embodied process. The Nordic countries have a long and rich tradition of including arts and crafts as core subjects in children’s education; however, there is an ongoing discussion of its potential role in the twenty-first century. The new knowledge on cognition and learning opens up new vistas on practical-aesthetic “making” activities in the general education of children. This article establishes a theoretical lens of embodied learning as an operational translational framework for questioning the assumption that “making matters” and uses it as a tentative analytical tool to unpack an example of making activities.

Highlights

New knowledge on cognition and learning generated in the various fields of neuroscience is being incorporated in the learning sciences
Questioning the assumption “making matters,” this article aims to convey and conceptualize this new development by (1) developing a theoretical lens of embodied learning and (2) using it as a tentative analytical tool to unpack an example of making activities
Between subject, context and artefact; or the way the negotiation activity carries a promise to facilitate non-monotonic, that is, deep learning (Ohlsson, 2011) and (c) studies on how engaging in making activities leads to structural and functional changes on the levels of cell, cerebral, individual and sociocultural in order to look for possible transfer of the learning in embodied making to other domains

Summary

Introduction

Coming from a background of teacher education, music and craft, her interdisciplinary research interest has led her to implementing neuroscientific knowledge in her studies of learning and making, and exploring the epistemological and methodological challenges this entails. Humans have always made tools for mastering our environment, and are still, everyday, making things, like sketching ideas on paper in board meetings to get their message through When it comes to education and schools, some experts claim that arts are important to learn in school and some not. This article presents a framework, embodied learning, for analyzing and understanding making processes This framework brings together and translates between neuroscience, learning sciences, making disciplines and arts education research.

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