Who's done this?

Scattered efforts to integrate physical activity and academic instruction can be found across fields including physical education, cognitive science, dance, biology, history and physics. Organizations such as STEM from Dance and Science Ceilidh have piloted related programs. Yet the pioneers in these areas are not yet in conversation about the educational possibilities that their work, taken together, represents. In an era when technology dominates so many visions of the future of education, the MIT Project on Embodied Education aims to convene that larger conversation. We believe the future of education—with or without technology—needs to pay attention to students’ bodies if it is to capitalize on all we know about how people learn!

Indeed, assessments of these varied approaches to full-body teaching and learning have shown positive educational outcomes in PreK-college settings. Across academic subjects and movement genres, they reveal particular benefits for populations who don’t typically succeed in conventional classrooms: under-represented minorities, low performing students, and students with disabilities including ADHD and dyslexia.  This evidence comes in many forms--from quantitative and qualitative research studies to meta-analyses and first-person narrative accounts. 

In addition to improving students’ academic performance and engagement, and offering opportunities for learning outside traditional classroom settings, embodied approaches offer teachers new tools for assessing students’ subject understanding in fields from math to geology to language instruction. 

In light of these findings, professional and governmental groups including the UK National Association of Head Teachers and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have endorsed integrating physical activity and academic instruction on a wider basis. We too hope this pedagogical approach can become more routine in educational systems around the world. This will require understanding the challenges that Embodied Education has faced in implementation, even when the idea has been warmly received. Close studies of obstacles encountered are already helping to identify future pathways towards success. We hope the easy access to lesson plans and ideas provided here can assist in this work.