I think this gets very tricky when thinking about 'nodding' as a physical cue to demonstrate understanding. As a teacher, I feel like often times this is not a valid way to demonstrate understanding.

Spatial features learned and understood through the use of body parts and related elements to measure. This is particularly relevant for students to understand the need for "standardized" measurement tools and units, as they will probably be able to experience the differences of measuring with A's feet or B's feet.

An opportunity to understand the meaning of foot/feet in the imperial measure system

The realization of space to move and limitations/features of different movements (hands vs walking) are also intertwined with the practicing of fractions and ratios

This seems like a struggle between trying to make it more 'school math' friendly, and trying to make it an organic experience.

The author suggests that by using embodied cognition she is not only seeing the saucer and cup as having resonance to school math through her experience, but she is able to translate that experience to someone else through this physical interactions.

I'm having a hard time parsing out what this means. Is it that: the chairs are present for the students, but embodied activity (and cognition) works to make sense of what the chairs are for the students?

The combination of gesture and talk bring the exhibit into "quasi-presence." Meaning, learning happened with the mind and the body together, not separated, and at this point in time, Claire is utilizing both to access that learning, to bring the exhibit into the room (quasi-presence)

Here, Claire's bodily motions are part of her remembering the exhibit. This shows that the involvement of her body, in manipulating the exhibits handles, was part of the engaged learning process.

The "perceptuomotor blending" mentioned here is an example of how Kelton links body motion with learning. In this case, the students are immediately perceiving how their bodily motion changes the graph; this perception provides immediate feedback, enhancing their understanding of how the line worked; however, as this vignette indicates, we cannot assume the learning will fit directly into the boundaries of "school math learning"

Embodied measurement allows the space for a values judgement, where measuring with an objective tool is just a number on a piece of paper.

This makes me think of furniture shopping. I know that the couch might fit in my living room, but I can't decide if the size/shape is actually "right" until I see it in place.

This makes total sense in the embodied world of this exhibit (and of science centers/children's museums in general), but I wonder if "presenting a more material ontology" of other subjects also creates a "fleshier epistemology"?

Do students who visit living history museums to "cook like the colonists" come away with a similar feeling of history being alive in their life (or at least relevant)? What about human-sized prairie dog colonies that are common at zoos - are the kids who play in them more concerned about conservation because of this experience?

I would (unscientifically) argue that these kind of exhibits do work to engender these kinds of feelings (dare I say identification?) in the participants - but what are the conditions where a simulation can become reality?

I think this idea of using the body as a tool is really fascinating. I think this method of teaching and use of the body is to help students realize they can do math without traditional tools--too many people think they can't do math without a calculator, etc. Ms. Collins is teaching her students they can do math with what they've got--their bodies.

For me this is one of the key arguments in favor of incorporating kinesthetic teaching methods, as well as other varying methods. There are many different styles of learners and traditional note-taking and worksheet teaching methods only caters to one, very specific (and not even that common) type of learner. A good lesson should cater to as many different types of learning styles as possible.

Here we can see how math is perceived as only existing in a certain way, and that there is no room for variation. Math Moves! show that math can exist in everyday, natural ways.

Really appreciating that this is where the "de-settling" argument ended up. That is not just another way to teach or to learn the same old mathematics that we've been doing, but that it shakes math to its core and asks what else is math? How might we know? How might we interact with it? And these are all questions about learning that might be best answered with our bodies, our experiences, etc. Awesome

I see Kelton's argument about bodies and learning to be two fold, first that embodied learning is a valid and important activity for the math classroom - and tied to that is that examples of embodied learning push on what she considers out of date and incorrect ideas about mathematics being something without culture and "bodiless"

This is an important point, that it isn't just the things that are obviously appropriate for the body (E.g., measuring) that count for learning with embodied experience, but that even the seemingly most abstract ideas boil down to "body-based" experiences. (And Kelton says a little later on that not only can they be embodied, but they should be - to challenge the traditional disembodied notion of math).

Math Moves! and embodied learning not as "just another path to the same destination" but a re-envisioning of the destination itself. It supports seeing learning math, and learning in general, as affected by the body if engaged.

I think this points to one of Kelton's ideas about the connection of bodies and learning, that you can call on past shared experiences of bodily movement and exploration in meaningful ways after the experience is over and the students' physical location is different.

I really like this idea of putting aside "standard" tools and using bodies instead. Using what they have naturally supports reasoning about the space around them in a new way and it validates their embodied experiences as legitimate tools for understanding and reasoning.

The teacher's effort to bring the museum into the classroom highlights ways in which the classroom is not designed for embodied learning.

The "whole half" game makes the students' bodies part of the effort of understanding ratio relationships. Not only are their bodies involved, but the coordination of more than one body is necessary to correctly exhibit what the whole and what the half is. Learning is happening with whole bodies, actions by bodies, and coordination of bodies.