ABSTRACT
This chapter returns to the topic of embodied cognition and digs deeper into particular topics relevant to teaching the embodied learner in the higher education classroom. The importance of the hand in interaction, inquiry, and understanding can hardly be overstated, and a pedagogy that enlists the hand in learning takes advantage of the substantial part of the brain that is mapped to the hand. The senses, including the kinesthetic sense, are also important, as is peri-personal space, which surrounds the learner and is an extension of the learning body. Low cognitive load manual activities with physical materials, such as doodling, knitting, and working with modeling clay, can also improve learning by improving attention in the college classroom. A discussion of disability speculates about the ways in which the conventional classroom and conventional approaches to college teaching create disability in some students through the mismatch between the needs of the embodied learner and typical modes of instruction. Finally, the chapter discusses the role of emotion in cognition—not as an antagonist to rational thought but an essential component of it—and the way in which embodied thinking can lead to intellectual breakthroughs.
