Embodied Artifacts and Conceptual Performances

Learning scientists are only beginning to appreciate the potential of synergy between two concurrent developments—theory of embodied cognition and technology of embodied interaction. We characterize and evaluate this prospective synergy from a sociocultural perspective. First we analyze learning in explicitly embodied cultural practices (e.g., surfing), then analogize to the implicitly embodied practice of mathematics. We next contextualize this analogy via interpreting data collected in a design-based research study, in which twenty-two 9-to-11-year-olds developed notions of proportionality through participating in guided problem-solving activities in an embodied-interaction space. In both surfing and mathematics, we argue, learners develop “embodied artifacts,” i.e. body-based and modular rehearsed actions. Embodied artifacts lend individuals entry into disciplinary competence via participation in action, refinement of operations, and integration into activity structures. Furthermore, embodied artifacts may become “conceptual performances,” wherein performance not merely augments, but stands for and constitutes understanding.