Abstract:

It is generally admitted that we have five senses : sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. However, could you specify which of the latter informed your brain about the hardness of a piece of chocolate or the weight of your portable? In each preceding case, you will have collected information that none of the five usually admitted senses could have given you. Since 1905, date at witch par Sir Charles Scott Sherrington , (1906) discovered tiny filament between muscles fiber and tendon tissus all running to the brain, he later coigned «proprioceptors», he recognized that those transducers carries a very important message the the brain, an appreciation of the muscle tension. This discovery opened a new ball game in our perception and picture of the world we live in and it opened new insight on the way we learn and teach. These last sensations are now grouped under the term « Proprioceptive sense » which can be simply described as the sensory recognition obtained thanks to the single or combined effects of muscular tension and relative position of the limbs. Thus, taking a peanut in one’s hand is more than a voluntary action; this gesture also informs one about its hardness, its weight, and the shape of the groundnut.

In this workshop, the author seeks to establish the reality and the pedagogical necessity of proprioceptive perceptions. Commonly accepted by sports coaches and physical education specialists, yet very little known by teachers, proprioceptive perceptions justify, per se, the need for laboratory work in the process of learning science and technology. We intend to prove this last affirmation and shall present many examples of its importance in and out of the lab and of the classroom. We will also evoke the origin of proprioception, and discuss a certain number of its epistemological and educational implications.

References:
[1] Sherrington CS. (1906) The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, Cambridge, p.335-343
[2] Kusurkar RA. Sir Charles Sherrington (1857 - 1952). J Postgrad Med [serial online] 2004 [cited 2007 Mar 29];50:238-239. Available from: http://www.jpgmonline.com/article.asp?issn=0022-3859;year=2004;volume=50;issue=3;spage=238;epage=239;aulast=Kusurkar

Keywords:

Senses, proprioception, learning.