The Impact of New Student Housing on Library Usage: A Case Study

A quantitative analysis of campus housing figures and library usage statistics suggests a stronger correlation than library usage compared to other enrollment figures. New residents on a university campus were surveyed on their frequency and reasons for utilizing the library's physical and online resources, before and after moving in.     

Conceptualizing sound as a form of incarnate mathematical consciousness

Much of the evidence provided in support of the argument that mathematical knowing is embodied/enacted is based on the analysis of gestures and bodily configurations, and, to a lesser extent, on certain vocal features (e.g., prosody). However, there are dimensions involved in the emergence of mathematical knowing and the production of mathematical communication that have not yet been investigated. The purpose of this article is to theorize one of these dimensions, which we call incarnate sonorous consciousness. Drawing on microanalyses of two exemplary episodes in which a group of third graders are sorting geometric solids, we show how sound has the potential to mark mathematical similarities and distinctions. These “audible” similarities and distinctions, which may be produced by incarnate dimensions such as beat gestures and prosody, allow children to objectify certain geometrical properties of the objects with which they transact. Moreover, the analysis shows that sonorous production is intertwined with other dimensions of students’ bodily activity. These findings are interpreted according to the “theory of mathematics in the flesh,” an alternative to current embodiment/enactivist theories in mathematics education.     

Caregiving and Social Support: A Twenty-first Century Challenge for College Students

This study adopted a caregiving perspective to analyze college students’ supportive relationships (N=266). With respect to the provision of care, female caregivers engaged in more difficult types of hands-on support than male caregivers, and data suggested that college caregivers are differently challenged by the life stage of the person for whom they provide care. With respect to students’ reception of social support, both main and interaction effects were found for sex, care giving status, and locus of control. Discussion focuses on the developmental nature of caregiving skills, social support reciprocity, and implications of these findings for public policy and human communication research.     

Intercorporeality and ethical commitment: an activity perspective on classroom interaction

In this article, we present a sociocultural alternative to contemporary constructivist conceptions of classroom interaction. Drawing on the work of Vygotsky and Leont??ev, we introduce an approach that offers a new perspective through which to understand the specifically human forms of knowing that emerge when people engage in joint activity. To this end, we present two concepts: space of joint action and togethering. The space of joint action allows us to capture the collective and sensuous or intercorporeal dimensions of thought and feeling in interaction. We resort to the concept of togethering to capture the ethical commitment participants make to engage in and produce activity. These concepts are illustrated through a discussion of concrete episodes from an elementary mathematics classroom.     

Radical embodiment and semiotics: toward a theory of mathematics in the flesh

The idea that mathematical knowledge is embodied is increasingly taking hold in the mathematics education literature. Yet there are challenges to the existing conceptualizations: There tend to be breaks between (a) the living and experienced body (flesh) and linguistic forms of thought, (b) individual and collective forms of knowing, and (c) the material body and the source of intentionality. Grounded in material phenomenology, we theorize the living body as semiotic expression that not only grounds thought but also leads to its development. We provide a detailed case study that elucidates the three ways in which the living body serves as sign for the growth of a second-grade student??s geometric understanding and the other bodies he interacts with.     

Knowing, Insight Learning, and the Integrity of Kinetic Movement

Psychologists, philosophers, and educators have traditionally interpreted the phenomenon of insight learning as the result of the sudden comprehension of abstract/conceptual ideas. The present article shows that such phenomenon may also follow and emerge from the kinetic movements of the human body; that is, we conceptualize insight learning as a post-kinetic phenomenon. Further, it is suggested that kinetic movement constitutes the ground of all human knowing. To illustrate this innovative conceptualization of insight learning, we present the analysis of an exemplary classroom episode taken from a two-year longitudinal video-based ethnographic project. Our project is concerned with elementary students?? mathematical knowing and learning. In the episode, which was selected among other structurally similar examples, three children are sorting geometrical objects. The evidence shown is interpreted as support for the theory of mathematics in the flesh, a radical approach to embodied cognition. In contrast to other embodiment/ enactivist theories in the field of mathematics education, we suggest that the kinetic movement of the human body constitutes a necessary condition for the emergence of abstract mathematical knowledge, and more specifically for the emergence of geometrical insight.