Abstract:

This study investigated the effects of kinaesthetic teaching on university engineering students and their well-being during the lecture.

20 students of the University of Ljubljana studying electrical engineering were introduced to innovative approach to learning through arts (dance and movement). They were taught about various green transition topics, e.g. energy efficiency of household appliances, measurement of power and energy, power factor of resistive, capacitive and inductive loads in a normal household. The lectures were not delivered using the classical ex-cathedra method, but with the teaching approach of creative movement by an artist – a dancer and choreographer. Creative movement is a novel teaching approach based on embodied cognition and emphasises the use of the body and movement in the learning context.

Students' reactions to this type of teaching were assessed using two questionnaires – on students' attitudes and beliefs towards this type of teaching and on their reflection of learning through an artistic experience. Psychophysiological measurements were also taken. These served as an objective measure of the activity of the students' autonomic nervous system during the lectures, which corresponds to the students’ psychological state. State-of-the-art wearables capable of recording electrodermal activity, peripheral tissue temperature and heart rate were used. The wearables were designed as rings to minimise the intrusiveness and psychological effect (e.g. measurement anxiety). During the lecture, the rings wirelessly streamed students’ physiological data, which was then processed and analysed.

The integration of embodied learning is proving to be a successful teaching approach. This approach is common with younger children, such as pre-schoolers and elementary school students, but this study has proven that it is also useful for engineering students who are not usually exposed to arts as part of their studies. In this way, we have given students the opportunity to experience innovative approaches to learning and foster a sensitivity to the arts. The acquired physiology enables us to objectively assess the impact of embodied learning on student wellbeing and test anxiety during lectures.

Acknowledgement:
This work received support from the project »University of Ljubljana for the sustainable society - ULTRA«, co-financed by the Republic of Slovenia, the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation and the European Union - NextGenerationEU.

Keywords:

Embodied learning, creative movement, higher education, electrical engineering education, psychophysiology.