Abstract:

This mentor-led action research examines the professional and emotional development of a third-year pre-service special education teacher with learning disabilities. The study explores how The Embodied Teaching Lab, a year-long experiential intervention integrating Differentiated Instruction (DI), Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), strengths-based education, and cooking-based pedagogy, shaped the student’s motivation, self-efficacy, and emerging teacher identity. The kitchen functioned as a hybrid learning space connecting cognition, emotion, and reflection, where pedagogical theory was embodied through sensory experience.

While reflective practice is well established in teacher education, little research has demonstrated how embodied, emotion-based interventions can transform reflection into action for pre-service teachers with learning challenges. This study conceptualizes embodied learning as a process that turns emotional vulnerability into pedagogical strength and professional identity.

A qualitative action-research design guided iterative cycles of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting across one academic year. The data included lesson plans, supervision records, reflective reports, mentor field notes, and a post-program interview that captured long-term reflections. Interpretive content analysis identified cognitive, affective, and pedagogical shifts, while reflexive documentation traced the student’s evolving learning trajectory.

Findings reveal a transformative process marked by struggle, reflection, and growth. The kitchen became an emotionally safe and motivating environment, where hands-on tasks anchored abstract pedagogical ideas such as scaffolding and differentiation. Emotional engagement, once a barrier, became a catalyst for learning, enhancing curiosity, creativity, and confidence. Mentoring shifted from directive support to co-design as the student created integrated lessons linking cooking and literacy, moving from dependence to agency and redefining herself as a capable educator.

Tensions emerged between emotional connection and academic rigor, underscoring the delicate balance between empathy and accountability, a productive tension essential to authentic learning. The process illustrated mentoring as Affective Mediation, harmonizing emotion and cognition to foster resilience and autonomy.

The study offers a holistic model of teacher identity development grounded in recursive cycles of doing-feeling-reflecting. The Embodied Teaching Lab demonstrates how sensory-rich, interest-based contexts bridge theory and practice, fostering inclusion, engagement, and depth of reflection.

Implications include integrating personal-interest contexts (e.g., art, cooking, movement) into teacher education, preparing mentors to support emotional learning while maintaining academic rigor, and adopting flexible assessments that value creativity, reflection, and process. Ultimately, embodied learning emerges as a transformative pathway for cultivating adaptive, inclusive, and emotionally intelligent educators.

Keywords:

Embodied learning, Differentiated and social-emotional learning, Integrating Differentiated Instruction, Affective mediation, Teacher identity formation, Resilience and vulnerability in learning, Reflective practice.