What is This?

What could the future of education look like if we imagined teaching and learning as full-body activities? Embodied Education is a pedagogical approach integrating physical activity and academic subject instruction. It grows out of scientific research recognizing that students think from the neck down as well as from the neck up, and that "learning on the move" enhances a variety of educational outcomes.

The theory and practice of Embodied Education has multiple origins, in explorations of “kinesthetic learning,” “integrated physical education,” “classroom physical activity,” “physically active lessons,” "movement-based instruction," and “embodied learning,” as well as individual experiments in different academic fields.  This experiential approach is distinct from pedagogical methods in which students watch athletes or artists illustrate academic concepts through movement, for example teaching physics by demonstrating karate moves, playing baseball, or performing a dance. 

Embodied Education is a comparatively low-cost innovation because it recombines existing institutional resources in novel ways. Educators around the world have long recognized schools’ responsibility for cultivating students’ bodies as well as their minds. Many campuses already have gyms, playing fields and playgrounds alongside classroom facilities. However, we’ve traditionally siloed the education of students’ bodies and minds. This doesn’t make sense in light of the latest learning science but it requires new ways of thinking about thinking, and new collaborations among instructional staff. 

The MIT Project on Embodied Education was founded in 2022 to organize a broader conversation about the place of movement in the future of education at MIT and beyond. This short video introduces you to our work.