AERA 2010 Conference:

Constructivism + Embodied Cognition = Enactivism:

Theoretical and Practical Implications for Conceptual Change
Douglas L. Holton
Utah State University
doug.holton@usu.edu
Objectives
The objective of this paper is to explore specific theoretical and practical implications of recent
research on embodied cognition and enactivism for the design of effective learning environments,
especially those targeting conceptual change. The ultimate goal is to illustrate how enactivism and
embodied cognition can help meet the criteria that often define scientific progress (Laudan, 1977), for
the purpose of advancing educational research and development and constructivist theory. Namely,
embodied cognition and enactivism may:
explain specific anomalies and inconsistencies in the data from experimental research on
conceptual change and learning
suggest bridges for theoretical divides in conceptual change research (Vosniadou, 2007)
suggest innovative new instructional techniques
explain previously unexplained yet successful learning strategies and techniques
remove the need for certain theoretical constructs
and, provide a new foundation for existing theories of learning and cognition that suggests new
lines of empirical research
Theoretical Framework
Research on embodied cognition and the theory of enactivism have found that sensory behavior and
cognition are connected, if not inseparable (Gibbs, 2005; Kiverstein & Clark, 2009; Gangopadhyay &
Kiverstein, 2009). The implications of this research have been well explored in other fields such as
cognitive science, linguistics, human-computer interaction, developmental psychology, mathematics,
biology, artificial intelligence, history, and even philosophy and law. The implications have not been
explored as much in education, however, with the exception of math education. This paper explores
the implications of enactivism for constructivist theory, and the implications of embodied cognition
research for theories and research on conceptual change.
Constructivism
Constructivism, as espoused by such researchers and theorists as Jean Piaget and Ernst von Glasersfeld,
has dominated educational research and practice for over 20 years. In this theory, learning is
considered an active process in which a learner constructs his or her own subjective knowledge.
Learners accommodate and assimilate new knowledge into their existing knowledge base.
Some of the new ideas, positive contributions, and implications of the constructivist worldview for
education include:
Teaching and learning become more student-centered. Learning does not automatically happen
when information is presented to a student.

Education becomes more humanized. Students are not just machines to be programmed.
If we assume that students have to build up their own knowledge, we have to consider that
they are not 'blank slates' (von Glasersfeld, 1991, p. 9).
Students are rational beings: Whatever a student says in answer to a question (or problem) is
what makes sense to the student at that moment (ibid, p. 10).
If teachers want to modify a students concepts and conceptual structures, they have to try and
build up a model of the particular students own thinking (ibid, p. 10).
Asking students how they got to the answer they gave (ibid, p. 10) is useful for pedagogical
purposes.
letting students struggle with problems of their own choice, helping them (as Maria Montessori
said a long time ago) only when they ask for help (ibid, p. 10).
Under the umbrella of constructivism the definition of a powerful learning environment has
changed dramatically: we do not regard homogeneous grouping as the norm, but diversity
comes into play as an asset. Cooperative learning is promoted and teaching is considered as a
co-construction in which active participation of the learner is essential (Kumpulainen, 2008, p.
90).

Constructivism has not been devoid of criticism, however. Some criticisms may include:
If all cognition (and even perception) is active, then even rote learning must be active. It, too,
must represent some kind of construction (Noddings, 2006, p. 127).
Piaget focused too heavily on an individual person's interactions with objects (not people). This
led to the development of social constructivism as one offshoot of constructivism.
The difficulty of assessment: How do we know what students understand? It is no use simply
telling students that they are wrong (von Glasersfeld, 1991, p. 13). When asked what are the
implications of constructivism for how we assess student learning, von Glasersfeld responded
This is the most difficult question.
Traditional and radical constructivism considers conceptual knowledge to be rational/linguistic.
From the Constructivist Journal homepage (http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/):
Constructivist approaches can be said to differ also with respect to whether constructs are
considered to populate the rational-linguistic (e.g., von Glasersfeld, Schmidt), the biologicalbodily (enactivist/embodied theories, e.g., Varela), or the social realm (social constructivism,
e.g., Latour).
Some educators may have a romantic notion of constructivism, and/or conflate constructivism
with pure unguided discovery learning. Constructivist-inspired educational approaches such as
problem-based learning and simulations still require a significant amount of guidance and
structure either from the instructor/facilitator (Hmelo-Silver & Barrows, 2006) or embedded
in the learning environment (de Jong et al., 1999; de Jong & van Joolingen, 1998). And
adopting constructivist approaches does not mean abandoning lectures or direct instruction,
which can still be highly effective, especially after students have experienced some
constructivist exploration activity, such as a lab or simulation or exploring data (Brant, Hooper,
& Sugrue, 1991; Schwartz & Bransford, 1998).
The learning paradox: How is new knowledge constructed? Von Glasersfeld (1998)
responded to this paradox by incorporating Peirce's abductive reasoning and Piaget's scheme
theory to explain how learning occurs in constructivism.
Epistemological and grounding problems. What is the nature of this knowledge? What is the
relationship between this knowledge and the world?
Enactivism does not have a solution for all these criticisms and issues, but it does make some progress.

Relation between enactivism and constructivism

One of the founders of enactivism, Humberto Maturana, has long been a colleague of Ernst von
Glasersfeld, who developed the radical constructivist perspective, and in fact Maturana is on the
advisory board of the Constructivist Foundations journal which has published articles on enactivism
(McGee, 2005, 2006; Kenny, 2007). Proulx (2008) has suggested that one might view enactivism as an
extension of constructivism, although there are significant differences, as well.
Enactivism. In enactivism, thinking and cognition are grounded in bodily actions: it is not knowledgeas-object but knowledge-as-action (Begg, 2000). As Reid (1996) notes in distinguishing
constructivism from enactivism, It is not a matter of an individual having a cognitive structure, which
determines how the individual can think, or of there being conceptual structures which determine what
new concepts can development. The organism as a whole is its continually changing structure which
determines its own actions on itself and its world (p. 2). Already, this view that concepts have an
embodied basis can help explain some of the alternative conceptions researchers and educators have
uncovered in students: naive notions like those derived from bodily metaphors may underpin
misconceptions, such as the quasi-Aristotelian notions that Alternative Frameworks researchers in
science education have documented extensively (Ernst, 2006). These implications are specifically
explored further in the latter half of this paper.
Potential benefits and contributions of an enactivist, embodied worldview on education.
Enactivism and embodied cognition research provide a theoretical grounding as well as a more
solid, concrete, empirical foundation for some of the concepts to come out of cognitive science
and constructivism (Pecher & Zwaan, 2005; Barsalou, 2008). Enactivism removes the
inside/outside distinction present in most constructivist theoretical writings, for example.
Considerations of embodiment perhaps humanize students and learning even more than
constructivism for example, the embodied notion of empathy and its role in learning and
understanding (Cunningham, 2009).
Learning environments that do not support students use of body and gesture can limit what
and how they learn (Roth & Lawless, 2001).
What is called teaching, therefore, involves not only the words and sentences a teacher utters
and writes on the board during a lesson, but also all the hands/arms gestures, body movements,
and facial expressions a teacher performs in the classroom (Pozzer-Ardenghi & Roth, 2006,
p.96)
One cannot ignore the the embodied nature of teaching and learning, including in online
learning contexts (McWilliam & Taylor, 1998; Bayne, 2004; Dall'Alba & Barnacle, 2005).
It is a mistake to treat knowledge and ideas as if they are detached from embodied encounter
with the world (Yates, 2007, p. 773, discussing O'Loughlin, 2006).
Teaching and learning practices that attend directly to sense making could assist in the learning
process (Barnacle, 2009, p. 31).
Learning must attend ultimately not only to the intellect but the whole person, and therefore, to
transforming who we are as people (ibid, p. 32). Our present education may transform into
the education of how to become a human being, instead of only a citizen (Jrg, 2009, p. 4).
Educational technology: With a better understanding of the constraints of embodiment, one can
better evaluate the pedagogical implications and limitations of new technologies, such as 3D
multiuser worlds (Second Life), tablet computers (such as the iPad), smart phones (iPhone,
Android phones), and so forth. Educators considering embodiment have also taken the lead in

designing new enactive and embodied interfaces for instruction, such as microcomputer-based
labs and sensors (descibed further below), rather than always being in a reactive, consumer
mode with respect to new technologies.
Enactivism and embodied cognition, like constructivism and cognitive research, are not devoid of real
and potential criticisms and limitations, however.
Potential criticisms, limitations of, or constraints on enactivism and embodied cognition for education.
There are many notions and examples that stretch the notion of embodiment - including 3D
avatars, physical actions, presence, social embodiment, and issues of gender and identity.
Wilson (2002) discusses several related but differing views on embodied cognition, and many
lump together situated cognition and distributed or extended cognition with embodied
cognition, as well.
One must be careful of oversimplifying applications of embodied cognition or enactivism to the
design of learning environments. Embodiment does not simply or only boil down to techniques
such as using anthropomorphic representations (such as pedagogical agents), making something
hands-on, using gestures, or being physically active during learning and teaching.
In fact limited interactivity may sometimes be more effective than full interactivity (Keehner
et al., 2008, p. 1128). This paradox is explained further in the action-under-constraint section
later in this paper.
Embodied cognition and enactivism are not behaviorism. Embodied cognition does bring back
the baby (embodied actions and behaviors) that was thrown out with the bath water (black
box stimulus-response models) during the cognitive revolution against behaviorism (Byrne,
1994). Proulx (2004) describes two crucial differences between enactivism and behaviorism,
however. Actions become a focus again because physical (embodied) processes and mental
processes are assumed to be one and the same, not because of an assumption that mental
processes are impossible to access or do not exist (behaviorism). Second, behaviorism assumes
a direction of causation from environment to animal (behavior), whereas enactivism sees
individuals as continually changing themselves, with a reciprocal relationship between the body
and the world.
Techniques and Modes of Inquiry
The remainder of this paper will re-visit existing empirical research studies and theories related
to conceptual change, for the purpose of exploring how embodied cognition research can help provide
better explanations or explain anomalies or inconsistencies in the data.
Evidence
Explaining Anomalies and Inconsistent Data.
Below are just a few examples of the kinds of anomalies and inconsistent educational research findings
for which embodied cognition and enactivism may suggest explanations.
Intuitive physics, physics education. A common theory explaining the misconceptions students have
about projectile motion is that they hold a nave impetus theory of the motion and also that their
misconceptions derive from the particular visual point of view they take when viewing or imagining a
dynamic scene. When viewing an animation of a ball dropping from a airplane, for example, a

significant percentage of students later draw the path of that ball as having fallen straight down rather
than in the correct, parabolic path. McCloskey et al. (1986) manipulated this animation to make the
ball fall in various paths that were behind or ahead of the correct parabolic path. When students drew
what they saw, their drawn paths were shifted backward in line with the theory that they were taking a
visual perspective of the scene from the point of view of the airplane in which the ball looks like it is
falling straight down in the canonical path. However, there was one exception, or anomaly. When the
animation was altered such that the ball fell ahead of the correct path during a normal drop, students
correctly drew the actual path of the ball dropping. In this case the ball landed ahead of the plane.
Even though from the visual perspective of the plane, the ball only moves forward a small amount,
students drew the correct path in which the ball moved forward that small amount plus the distance that
the plane traveled. When viewing this particular animation, the ball may appear to shoot out from the
plane, or be thrown ahead from the plane, rather than being passively dropped. A question is do
students conceive of a scenario as a ball as falling passively, or as a person actively throwing a ball?
Note this is no longer a question of visual perspective, but embodied perspective.
The visual perspective explanation of related misconceptions about project motion has other anomalies
as well. In the curved tube problem, students are asked to draw the path a ball takes after exiting a
curved tube. A significant percentage of students believe the ball keeps curving after exiting the tube.
Furthermore, in a hands-on condition students were asked to make puck move through a curved tube
shape on top of a table, and they would often move their hand with a circular motion (winding up)
before releasing the puck as if to make the puck curve. There is no purely visual experience or
explanation that would explain this behavior, and neither is there a purely logical or abstract conceptual
theory that might explain why students believe the object travels in a curvilinear path absent external
forces or constraints. A better explanation may come from embodied theories of cognition, in which
students may be re-conceptualizing both physical and more abstract physics concepts in terms of
actions and manually-controlled changes to behavior. We've all seen or experienced similar
phenomenon in sports, when for example a baseball player hits a homerun and leans his body or waves
his arms as if to attempt to control the path of the ball, or after hitting a pool ball with the cue one leans
over or pushes the stick in a futile effort to alter the path of the ball. The point is that our everyday
conceptions of physics are not only non-Newtonian, but not solely visual, either. We hold an embodied
physics that has been explored quite in depth by perception and action researchers over the past two
decades. For example, when viewing a dot travelling across a computer screen at a constant velocity,
we do not see it as such (Runeson, 1974). It appears to move faster at the edges of the screen and
slower in the middle, partly because of our saccadic eye movements which are jumping back and forth
from the edge of the screen and the dot on the screen to judge velocity.
Animations and diagrams. In more generally-relevant recent research on animations/videos and
diagrams, studies are finding that animations and videos depicting dynamic processes arent inherently
more effective than static diagrams for learning purposes. In fact on average, diagrams have a slight
edge (Tversky et al., 2002). Part of this is because with diagrams one can take one's time, explore and
revisit different parts of the diagram, mentally animate whats going on, and so forth. When
watching a video or animation, it may go too fast for someone (or too slow), and one might miss or not
understand part of it. However, what has been shown to be even more effective than either option
(video/animation or static diagrams) are user-controllable diagrams, or animated, controllable
simulations (Lowe, 2004; Chan & Black, 2006). If students are allowed to control the movement of an
object, for example, or the changing of a variable, their scores and other measures of understanding are
much higher than from passive animations or static diagrams alone.
Other anomalies. Other sources of anomalies and inconsistencies in data from various educational

research studies include research on cognitive load theory, which itself was altered to add the concept
of 'germane' cognitive load after anomalous data emerged. Attempts to apply symbolic, information
processing cognitive models to this data has met certain limitations which may be overcome by the
application of embodied cognition.
Bridging Theoretical Divides, Revisiting Old Theories
Various theoretical disputes and arguments exist in the education research literature, as well.
Sometimes the competing models may not have considerations of embodiment which could provide
new insights. Also, sometimes educational and cognitive theories fall out of favor more because of their
age or because they lack a grounding that embodied cognition and enactivism might help provide.
Conceptual change theories. Two dominant, yet competing perspectives on the nature of conceptual
change and students' intuitive knowledge have emerged over the last 30 years. Misconceptions theory,
as represented by Micheline Chi, and p-prims theory (knowledge in pieces), as represented by Andy
diSessa. Tuminaro (2002) provides a succinct summary of the two perspectives: In short, the unitary
story of knowledge [Chi] is that students possess robust cognitive structures, or misconceptions, that
need to be torn down, so the correct conception can be erected in its stead. The manifold framework
[diSessa] claims that students possess small pieces of knowledge that have developed through everyday
reasoning about the world (p. 15). Embodied cognition and enactivism holds promise for finding
connections and bridges between these two perspectives, if not providing a new and better theory of
conceptual knowledge. What the core phenomenological primitives in diSessa's theory (such as 'force
as mover' and 'force as action') and the 'treat like a substance or object' misconception in Chi's theory
may have in common is that action is at the core. Actions are both theory-like (Chi), in that they are
coordinated and it is difficult to alter ingrained patterns of actions, but they are also contextualized.
The diSessa perspective neglected that the body is a part of the context, too - not just a context but
every learning context, and it is shared between contexts, lending to its potential role in transfer and
abstract learning. We also tend to break up complex dynamic systems into chunks that can be enacted
(such as turning one pulley at a time in a pulley system or turning one gear at a time).
McLuhan's media theory. Examining the theoretical literature, there appears to be a connection
between enactivism and Marshall McLuhan's ideas about media, which have been applied to education
by numerous researchers and educational theorists. Radical enactivists (such as Daniel Hutto) reject
the notion of content of experience, or that experiences are kinds of objects. Instead experience is
thought of in terms of actions done by or to the experiencer. McLuhan espoused that the content of
media was the audience itself. Of course his most famous quote was that the media is the message,
and the embodied version might be that the body is the message. In the context of education, this is
referring to the bodies of the students and the teacher. As mentioned before, the embodied context of
teaching and learning should not be ignored even, or especially, in online learning contexts (
McWilliam & Taylor, 1998; Bayne, 2004; Dall'Alba & Barnacle, 2005).
Other examples. McVee et al. (2005) described how considerations of embodiment can help bolster
schema theory and its applications to and explanations of reading comprehension. The motor theory of
speech perception was developed in the 1950s and later fell out of favor after the emergence of newer
cognitive linguistic and speech theories. However, it is seeing renewed interest in part due to recent
research in embodied cognition and enactivism.
Explaining Previously Successful Techniques

Embodied cognition research can also help explain other existing instructional strategies and
techniques that have been successful.
Microcomputer-based laboratories (MBL) and graphs of motion. MBL involves the use of sensors
connected to a computer, such as distance, motion, and temperature sensors. The computer graphs and
analyzes the data from the sensors in real time. For example, student may move a toy car back and
forth along a track, while a computer instantly displays a graph of the cars position or velocity or
acceleration by interpreting the data from an optical distance sensor pointed at the car. From such an
activity, a student may develop a tool perspective, or a perspective on how the computer is
interpreting the motion of the object and translating it into a graph (Nemirovsky, Tierney, & Wright,
1998). Students often have misconceptions about graphs of motion, such as confusing slope with
height or interpreting a graph as a picture of the motion it represents, i.e., believing that a graph line
goes up and then down like a hill depicts the motion of an object going up and over a hill (Clement,
1989). Yet after only a matter of minutes interacting with a microcomputer-based lab, students may
show marked improvements in their graph interpretation skills (Brasell, 1987). Brasells study also
showed that a group of students who had MBL feedback delayed a mere 20-30 seconds showed much
diminished performance compared to students who received immediate feedback. The real-time
feedback alone though does not completely explain the remarkable learning effects. An alternate
technique to MBL is interactive video instruction (IVI), in which a video of the motion of an object is
shown in real-time and linked to a graph of the objects motion. This technique does not show the
learning advantages that MBL shows, however. Beichner states that with IVI, students cannot control
the motion. This ability to make changes and then instantly see the effect is vital to the efficacy of
MBL. The feedback appeals to the visual and kinesthetic senses (1990, p.812). Thus real-time
kinesthetic interactions are important to the success of MBL. More recent studies have confirmed the
significance contribution embodiment and bodily interactions have in understanding graphs of motion
(Botzer & Yerushalmy, 2008; Anastopoulou, Sharples, & Baber, 2010).
Participatory simulations. The use of strategies to support kinesthetic participation with symbolic
simulations has not been specifically studied, although researchers have found evidence linking
students kinesthetic behavior to their understanding of dynamic systems. Monaghan and Clement
(1999) observed students performing hand motions and visualizations while using a relative motion
simulation, and they interpreted this as evidence for self-projection, or students forming their own
mental model of the scenario. Roth and Lawless (2001) also observed that students gestures are an
important means in the construction of perception and communication as students interact over and
about a computer software environment, and as mentioned before, they suggest that learning
environments that do not support students use of body and gesture can limit what and how students
learn. Sadler, Whitney, Shore, and Deutsch (1999) allowed students using a simulation of wave
mechanics to interactively control and generate simulated wave behavior, but did not explore the effect
these interactions had on student understanding specifically. Students did enjoy however being able to
create their own representations of wave phenomena in addition to exploring the examples included
with the software.
The nature of a computer-based simulation allows for strategies to assist learning with understanding
that are more interactive than direct instruction, visualization, or animation. A student may interact
with a simulated system in real time. Furthermore, a student may reconnect to a system in the most
direct sense by becoming a participating agent within that system. While participation has always
integral to experiential simulations in which students take on the roles of human agents within a
system, symbolic simulations that support interactive participation, termed participatory simulations
(Colella, 2000; Wilensky & Stroup, 1999), have been rarer.

In an example of a participatory simulation, a class of tenth grade biology students each wore
microprocessors known as Thinking Tags developed at the MIT Media Lab (Colella, 2000). These
embedded computers contained infrared transmitters and receivers and a display containing a number
pad and five bicolor LEDs. Through group activities with these devices, a teacher could simulate the
spread of a virus with the students. A certain students computer may initially be infected with the
virus, and students who come in contact with that student may also be infected. Wilensky and Stroup
(1999) have also conducted participatory simulations of traffic patterns using networked calculators
instead of Thinking Tags.
Research with participatory simulations is only in initial phases, but students appear to have a high
level of engagement with the experience and collect evidence and form hypotheses about the
underlying rules of the simulation. This research has only been concerned with one type of system,
however, decentralized systems. In this type of system many similar or identical agents act
independently of one another, and the underlying rules governing behavior may be very simple
although the resulting patterns of behavior may be very complex. Participatory simulations help
students gradually discover the simple rules underlying complex systems, but learning about
decentralized systems can also be facilitated without the use of computers. In another version of the
simulation of a virus spread, students are each given a small cup of clear liquid, one of which is
infected with the base compound sodium hydroxide. After mixing liquids with one another, students
test their own cup of fluid with litmus paper to discover who has been contaminated with the base
(Hammer, 2001). The use of Thinking Tags and networked calculators can help improve the speed and
precision of a participatory simulation of a decentralized system, but participatory simulations can
support learning about physical systems in which different components do not behave so
independently, as well. I have labeled the latter enactive modeling, as described below.
Contrasting cases. Contrasting cases are another highly effective instructional strategy that facilitates
learning in virtually any domain using any media (text, diagrams, pictures, animations, etc.).
Contrasting cases help students notice new features and make distinctions (Bransford et al., 1989;
Schwartz & Bransford, 1998). Using this strategy, one shows learners two or more related cases at a
time, rather than one at a time. Essentially one can direct attention to a feature by showing two cases
side by side that differ by that very feature on which attention needs to be focused. Contrasting cases
has been shown to be an effective strategy in other domain areas such as algebra (Rittle-Johnson &
Star, 2007; Derry, Wilsman, & Hackbarth, 2007) and psychology (Schwartz & Bransford, 1998).
One basic example of contrasting cases described in Bransford et al. (1989) is to imagine viewing a
circle on the left side of a screen. Students viewing this circle are asked to describe what they see, and
may notice that it is a circle. Now, if other students are shown the same circle in the context of another,
different circle on the other side of the screen, they additionally notice features that distinguish the two
circles. For example, if the other circle has a thicker border, or is smaller or larger, or is moved to a
different position, or has a different color, and so forth.
An embodied theory of what may be happening with contrasting cases is that students are mentally
doing the transformation that causes the two objects to differ. This simplifies how we can understand
the two objects, as just one object plus a transformation. Hahn, Chater, and Richardson (2003)
developed a cognitive model in which we make all similarity judgments via transformations. This
model could easily be extended to a more embodied notion of transformation as being connected to
manual processes of transforming objects and embodied concepts.

Other existing techniques. The list of existing techniques that could perhaps be better explained by
appealing to concepts from embodied cognition and enactivism is too long to review here. Some might
include the Montessori methods (Lillard, 2008), effective chalkboard interactions via gestures
(Goldin-Meadow, 2003; Pozzer-Ardenghi & Roth, 2006), reading strategies for young children
(Glenberg et al., 2004), and techniques in various sub-domains such as music education (Antle et al.,
2009).
Innovative New Instructional Techniques
In the first two examples above, MBL and participatory simulations, there is one limitation: the
mapping between actions and concepts is usually very literal, direct, and spatially isomorphic. These
are concrete mappings of actions to concepts. However, as Lakoff and Johnson and others have shown,
even the most abstract of concepts have an embodied basis, including even those in math and
philosophy (Johnson, 1990; Lakoff & Nuez, 2001; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). One does not need to
limit the applications of embodied action or bodily motion to literal concepts that map directly and
concretely as in the examples above. One can utilize embodiment for helping to teach, explain, or
understand abstract concepts, especially those that are often not completely or accurately described by
visualizations or words alone.
Enactive modeling and user-controllable diagrams and animations. In previous research I have
described the technique of enactive modeling, in which a student does not merely observe a dynamic
system, but takes over the role of one of the elements and re-enacts and controls its behavior, observing
the effects on the rest of the system. This and related instructional strategies have proven more
effective than traditional instruction using static diagrams, animations, or verbal/oral descriptions. In
one study, students took on the role of the voltage source. This allowed them to take a voltage-centered
perspective on circuit behavior (as experts do) and enact different circuit behaviors directly, such as
wiggling voltage back and forth to simulate AC circuits and see the effects of voltage frequency and
amplitude in circuits with different configurations and components such as inductors and capacitors.
Action-under-constraint. There is a potentially more generalizable instructional design strategy than
the ones above, inspired by embodied cognition and enactivism. It is not ones actions per se that one
learns when interacting in a learning environment, but the constraints on our actions that we
internalize, in the Vygotskian sense. And this assumes that the constraints on action are aligned with
the constraints of the system or concepts being learned. This is not always the case, however, and may
explain certain ineffective practices and misconceptions. An example using the airplane drop
problem from conceptual change research is described below. This action-under-constraint
framework can be boiled down to a strategy that is an extension of the instructional maxim from
cognitive and constructivist research known as making thinking visible or the make it visible
strategy. The new, embodied, twist on that strategy is to make it enactable or make it doable.
Making something visible is sometimes, but not always, enough to let students inspect a model or
system and understand its constraints. Making something visible and manipulable, however, can often
better facilitate conceptual understanding, especially students with lower spatial and visualization
abilities.
Conclusions
Embodied cognition research and enactivism may serve as a new foundation for research on
conceptual change and constructivist-inspired learning environments. I do not believe this involves
throwing out or superseding constructivist theories at all. There may even be an opportunity for

developing a super-parent model for instructional design that can find connections or situations in
which either or multiple behaviorist, cognitivist, and constructivist instructional strategies may be
appropriate. This is due to the fact that embodied cognition brings back the baby (embodied actions)
that was thrown out with the bath water (black box stimulus-response models) during the cognitive
revolution which rejected theories from the behaviorist era (Byrne, 1994). This doesn't mean
behaviorism is back or that embodied cognition and enactivism are the same thing as behaviorism,
however. Proulx (2004) has discussed the differences between enactivism and behaviorism in more
detail.
Significance of this Work
This paper provides specific examples and clear theoretical suggestions to help other
educational researchers and developers create more effective learning environments that foster
conceptual change. New lines of research and theoretical inquiry inspired by embodied cognition and
enactivism could further improve student learning and teacher training.
References
Anastopoulou, S., Sharples, M., & Baber, C. (2010). An evaluation of multimodal interactions with
technology while learning science concepts. British Journal of Educational Technology.
Antle, A., Corness, G., & Droumeva, M. (2009). What the body knows: Exploring the benefits of
embodied metaphors in hybrid physical digital environments. Interacting with Computers, 21,
6675.
Barnacle, R. (2009). Gut instinct: The body and learning. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 41(1),
22-33.
Barsalou, L.W. (2008). Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59(6), 617-645.
Bayne, S. (2004). The embodiment of the online learner. In R. Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer
& R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference.
(pp. 105-115). Perth, 5-8 December. Retrieved from
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/bayne.html
Begg, A. (2000). Enactivism: a personal interpretation. Unpublished manuscript. Retrieved July 20th,
2009 from http://www.emr.vic.edu.au/Downloads/enactivism_andybegg.doc
Beichner, R.J. (1990). The effect of simultaneous motion presentation and graph generation in a
kinematics lab. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 27(8), 803-815.
Botzer, G., & Yerushalmy, M. (2008). Embodied semiotic activities and their role in the construction of
mathematical meaning of motion graphs. International Journal of Computers for Mathematical
Learning, 13, 111-134.
Bransford, J.B., Franks, J.J., Vye, N., & Sherwood, R. (1989). New approaches to instruction: Because
wisdom can't be told. In S. Vosniadou & A. Ortony (Eds.), Similarity and analogical reasoning.
(470-497). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brant, G., Hooper, E., & Sugrue, B. (1991). Which comes first: The simulation or the lecture? Journal
of Educational Computing Research, 7(4), 469-481.
Brasell, H. (1987). The effect of real-time laboratory graphing on learning graphic representations of
distance and velocity. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 24(4), 385-395.

Byrne, M.D. (1994). Integrating, Not Debating, Situated Action and Computational Models: Taking the
Environment Seriously. Cognitive Science Conference. Retrieved from
http://chil.rice.edu/byrne/Pubs/cogsci94.pdf
Chan, M. and Black, J. (2006). Direct-manipulation animation: incorporating the haptic channel in the
learning process to support middle school students in science learning and mental model
acquisition. Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences.
Clement, J. (1989). The concept of variation and misconceptions in Cartesian graphing. Focus on
Learning Problems in Mathematics, 11(1-2), 77-87.
Colella, V. (2000). Participatory simulations: Building collaborative understanding through immersive
dynamic modeling. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 9(4), 471-500.
Cunningham, D.L. (2009). An empirical framework for understanding how teachers conceptualize and
cultivate historical empathy in students. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 41(5), 679-709.
Dall'Alba, G., & Barnacle, R. (2005). Embodied knowing in online environments. Educational
Philosophy and Theory, 37(7), 719-744.
de Jong, T., Martin, E., Zamarro, J.M., Esquembre, F., Swaak, J., & van Joolingen, W.R. (1999). The
integration of computer simulation and learning support: An example from the physics domain
of collisions. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 36, 597-615.
de Jong, T., & van Joolingen, W.R. (1998). Scientific discovery learning with computer simulations of
conceptual domains. Review of Educational Research, 68(2), 179-201.
Derry, S.J., Wilsman, M.J., & Hackbarth, A.J. (2007). Using contrasting case activities to deepen
teacher understanding of algebraic thinking and teaching. Mathematical Thinking and Learning,
9(3), 305-329.
Ernst, P. (2006). Reflections on theories of learning. ZDM, 38(1).
Gangopadhyay, N., & Kiverstein, J. (2009). Enactivism and the unity of perception and action. Topoi,
28(1), 6373.
Gibbs, R. (2005). Embodiment and Cognitive Science. Cambridge University Press.
Glenberg, A. M., Gutierrez, T,, Levin, J. R., Japuntich, S., & Kaschak, M. P. (2004). Activity and
imagined activity can enhance young children's reading comprehension. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 96(3), 424-436.
Goldin-Meadow, S. (2003). Hearing Gesture: How Our Hands Help Us Think. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Hahn, U., Chater, N., & Richardson, L.B. (2003). Similarity as transformation. Cognition, 87(1), 1-32.
Hammer, D. (2001). Powerful technology and powerful instruction. In T. Koschmann, R. Hall, & N.
Miyake (Eds.), CSCL 2: Carrying Forward the Conversation. (pp. 399-403). Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Hmelo-Silver, C.E., & Barrows, H.S. (2006). Goals and strategies of a problem-based learning
facilitator. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-based Learning, 1(1).
Johnson, M. (1990). The Body in the Mind. University Of Chicago Press.
Jrg, T. (2009). Thinking in Complexity about Learning and Education: A Programmatic View .
Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, 6(1), 1-22.

Kenny, V. (2007). Distinguishing Ernst von Glasersfeld's radical constructivism from Humberto
Maturana's radical realism. Constructivist Foundations, 2(2-3), 58-64.
Kiverstein, J., & Clark, A. (2009). Introduction: Mind embodied, embedded, enacted: One church or
many? Topoi, 28(1), 1-7.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to
Western Thought. Basic Books.
Lakoff, G., & Nuez, R. (2000). Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings
Mathematics into Being. Basic Books.
Laudan, L. (1977). Progress and Its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth. Routledge.
Li, Q., Clark, B., & Winchester, I. (2009). Instructional Design and Technology Grounded in
Enactivism: A Paradigm Shift? British Journal of Educational Technology.
Lillard, A.S. (2008). Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius. Oxford University Press.
Lowe, R. (2004). User-Controllable Animated Diagrams: The Solution for Learning Dynamic Content?
Diagrammatic Representation and Inference. Springer.
McGee, K. (2005). Enactive cognitive science. Part 1: Background and research themes. Constructivist
Foundations, 1(1), 19-33.
McGee, K. (2006). Enactive cognitive science. Part 2: Methods, insights, and potential. Constructivist
Foundations, 1(2), 73-82.
McVee, M.B., Dunsmore, K., Gavelek, J.R. (2005). Schema theory revisited. Review of Educational
Research, 75(4), 531-566.
McWilliam, E., & Taylor, P.G. (1998). Teaching im/material: Challenging the new pedagogies of
instructional design. Educational Researcher, 29-35.
Monaghan, J.M., & Clement, J. (2000). Algorithms, visualization, and mental models: High school
students interactions with a relative motion simulation. Journal of Science Education and
Technology, 9(4), 311-325.
Miller, C.S., Lehman, J.F., & Koedinger, K.R. (1999). Goals and Learning in Microworlds. Cognitive
Science, 23(3), 305-336.
Nemirovsky, R., Tierney, C., & Wright, T. (1998). Body motion and graphing. Cognition and
Instruction, 16(2), 119-172.
Noddings, N. (2006). Philosophy of Education, 2nd Edition. Westview Press.
O'Loughlin, M. (2006). Embodiment and Education: Exploring Creatural Existence. Philosophy and
Education, 15. Dordrecht: Springer.
Pecher, D., & Zwaan, R.A. (2005). Grounding Cognition: The Role of Perception and Action in
Memory, Language, and Thinking. Cambridge University Press.
Pozzer-Ardenghi, L., & Roth, W. (2006). On performing concepts during science lectures. Science
Education, 91(1), 96-114.
Proulx, J. (2004). The enactivist theory of cognition and behaviorism: An account of the processes of
individual sense-making. Proceedings of the 2004 Complexity Science and Educational
Research Conference.
Proulx, J. (2008). Some differences between Maturana and Varela's theory of cognition and

constructivism. Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, 5(1), 11-26.

Reid, D. (1996). Enactivism as a methodology. In L. Puig & A. Gutierrez (Eds.), Proceedings of the
Twentieth Annual Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics
Education, (Vol. 4, pp. 203-210). Valencia, Spain.
Rittle-Johnson, B. & Star, J. (2007). Does comparing solution methods facilitate conceptual and
procedural knowledge? An experimental study on learning to solve equations. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 99(3), 561-574.
Runeson, S. (1974). Constant velocity not perceived as such. Psychological Research, 37(1), 3-23.
Sadler, P.M., Whitney, C.A., Shore, L., & Deutsch, F. (1999). Visualization and representation of
physical systems: Wavemaker as an aid to conceptualizing wave phenomena. Journal of
Science Educational and Technology, 8(3), 197-209.
Schwartz, D. L. & Bransford, J. D. (1998). A time for telling. Cognition & Instruction, 16, 475-522.
Tuminaro, J. (2002). How Students Use Mathematics in Physics: A Brief Survey of the Literature.
Unpublished manuscript. Retrieved July 20th, 2009 from
http://www.physics.umd.edu/perg/math/UsingMath.pdf
Tversky, B., Morrison, J.B., & Betrancourt, M. (2002). Animation: can it facilitate? International
Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 57, 247-262.
von Glasersfeld, E. (1991). Questions and Answers about Radical Constructivism . In M. K. Pearsall
(Ed.), Scope, sequence, and coordination of secondary school science, Vol. II: Relevant
research, (169182). Washington, D.C. The National Science Teachers Association. Retrieved
from http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/EvG/papers/151.pdf
von Glasersfeld, E. (1998). Scheme theory as a key to the learning paradox. 15th Advanced Course,
Archives Jean Piaget. Retrieved from
http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/papers/glasersfeld/glasersfeld98-schemetheory.pdf
Vosniadou, S. (2007). The Cognitive-Situative Divide and the Problem of Conceptual Change.
Educational Psychologist, 42(1), 55-66.
Wilensky, U., & Stroup, W. (1999). Learning through participatory simulations: Network-based design
for systems learning in classrooms. Proceedings of the CSCL Conference.
Wilson, M. (2002). Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 9(4), 625-636.
Yates, L. (2007). Embodying education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 39(7), 772-776.