Through its Grants in Education Innovation, the Jameel World Education Lab aspires to develop the building blocks, ideas, and connections that could power a global transformation in learning. Jameel World Education Lab grants have supported educational innovations across a rich variety of MIT fields: Linguistics, Mechanical Engineering, Literature, Architecture, Physics, Management, Political Science, and more.
Jennifer Light, Bern Dibner Professor of the History of Science and Technology, department of Urban Studies and Planning. Dr. Light’s project, entitled “An online platform for explaining, promoting, and facilitating embodied education at MIT and beyond” aims to close the gap between the growing body of research on movement and the learning process and the pedagogical strategies that educators use. Light seeks to find ways to help schools integrate physical activity and academic instruction at all levels — for example, teaching elementary school geometry through yoga, middle school physics through martial arts, and high school history through dance.
What excites you most about your project?
What excites me most about this project is that movement genres from sports to gestures to playground games offer a nearly infinite textbook for teaching subjects across the curriculum, from PreK to college level. Of course, not every subject is amenable to this approach, and I’m not suggesting that students be in constant motion throughout the school day. But it is remarkable to discover how, with a bit of creative thinking, we could be getting students out of their seats much more frequently – without detracting from academic learning time.
What do you hope is the biggest takeaway from your project?
One of the biggest takeaways from my project is that not every educational innovation has to be expensive. 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 website I’m building aims to offer as much guidance as possible towards these ends—explaining both why and how to bring together physical activity with academic subject instruction.
What role does collaboration play in the development and implementation of your project?
I could not have done any of this without help from faculty, students and staff across campus! Professor Carrie Sampson Moore (director of Physical Education and Wellness) and many instructors from the MIT Department of Athletics, Recreation, and Physical Education have worked with me to develop lesson plans and ideas we’ve piloted in my undergraduate courses—for example, using Judo to teach physics and yoga to teach geometry. Faculty from academic departments, including Mary Fuller (Literature), McKersin Previlus (Music and Theater Arts) and Benita Comeau (Mechanical Engineering) have also participated, making connections between Aikido and conflict resolution, dance and history, and martial arts and STEM. Students in my undergraduate courses have amazed me with their creative imaginations in developing new lesson ideas—for example, a modified game of tag to teach principles of the human immune system and a playground-based chemistry lesson on different types of chemical bonds. The team at MIT Video Production has captured some of these activities on video. And the J-WEL community has asked valuable questions and offered advice to help me make this work as useful as possible. I’m excited to be able to share the fruits of our collaborations soon!
What does success look like for your project, and what milestones are you aiming to achieve?
Success will be a website that is valuable to educators in diverse educational settings in the J-WEL community and beyond. I’ve structured it around three themes: (1) “Why do this?” offers an overview of the recent scientific research on embodiment, movement and learning along with links to the actual papers. (2) “Who’s done this?” summarizes the evaluation research and shares links to data on the efficacy of integrating physical activity and academic instruction in a variety of settings. (3) “How do I do this?” provides users with text, slide, and video-based lesson plans and ideas, drawn from my work with collaborators, the best of my students’ class projects, and contributions from colleagues around the world. At present, parts 1 and 2 are complete and I aim to finish part 3 by the end of spring semester so the site can go live in early summer 2024. This will be a living resource--and I welcome contributions from J-WEL community members as I update the site. In the longer term I also hope this work helps to build community among advocates for movement and learning to consolidate our impact on the education field.