ABSTRACT
As further evidence of why it is important for college teachers to support the embodied learner, this chapter discusses the many ways in which people think with things. In higher education, we often neglect the role that manipulatives, artifacts, and tools can play in cognition and in learning. This chapter discusses such topics as memory, categorization, spatial thinking, inquiry, emotion, and meaning making, as well as the social dimensions of instruction and problem-solving. In doing so, it illustrates the wide variety of ways in which the embodied thinker and the material world interact that provide important supports for human action and cognition.
