Embodied cognition is growing in theoretical importance and as driving a set of design principles for curriculum activities and technology innovations for mathematics education. The central aim of the EMIC (Embodied Mathematical Imagination and Cognition) Working Group is to connect with inspired colleagues in this growing community of discourse…

Whereas emerging technologies, such as touchscreen tablets, are bringing sensorimotor interaction back into mathematics learning activities, existing educational theory is not geared to inform or analyze passages from action to concept. We present case studies of tutor-student behaviors in an embodied-interaction learning environment, the…

Forty 4th and 9th grade students participated individually in tutorial interviews centered on a problem-solving activity designed for learning basic algebra mechanics through diagrammatic modeling of an engaging narrative about a buccaneering giant burying and unearthing her treasure on a desert island. Participants were randomly assigned to…

ProbLab is a probability-and-statistics unit developed at the Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern University. Students analyze the combinatorial space of the 9-block, a 3-by-3 grid of squares, in which each square can be either green or blue. All 512 possible 9-blocks are constructed and assembled in a "bar…

The paper describes the rationale and 10-day implementation in a 5th-grade classroom (n=19) of an experimental ratio-and-proportion instructional design. In this constructivist-phenomenological design, coming from our theoretical perspective, design research, and domain analysis, students: (1) link "real-world" and "mathematical" objects…