Commentary on Theories of Mathematics Education

Embodied Minds and Dancing Brains:
New Opportunities for Research in Mathematics
Education
Stephen R. Campbell
Prelude: This chapter reports on an initiative in educational research in mathematics
education that is augmenting traditional methods of educational research with
methods of cognitive neuroscience and psychophysiology. Background and motivation
are provided for this initiative—referred to here as mathematics educational
neuroscience. Relations and differences between cognitive neuroscience and educational
neuroscience are proposed that may have some bearing as to how this area unfolds.
The key role of embodied cognition as a theoretical framework is discussed in
some detail, and some methodological considerations are presented and illustrated
as well. Overall, mathematics educational neuroscience presents exciting new opportunities
for research in mathematics education and for educational research in
general.
Introduction
There has been much research in mathematics education that has addressed a wide
variety of affective, cognitive, and social issues (e.g., Grouws 1992), and there have
been a breathtaking variety of phenomenological, anthropological, ethnographic,
behavioral, cognitive, and social interactionist approaches taken toward understanding
these issues (Sierpinska and Kilpatrick 1998). Over the years, there have also
been a number of efforts to incorporate cognitive science and cognitive technologies
into research in mathematics education (e.g., Davis 1984; Schoenfeld 1987;
Pea 1987).
Until quite recently, however, there has been very little to be found in the mathematics
education research literature exploring or drawing out some of the possible
implications of neuroscience or cognitive neuroscience for mathematics education.
Indeed, the term “neuroscience” is not to be found at all in the indexes of either
of the following seminal publications: Grouws (1992); Sierpinska and Kilpatrick
(1998). Perhaps more surprisingly, despite much hoopla over the 1990’s being des-
S.R. Campbell ()
Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada
e-mail: sencael@sfu.ca
B. Sriraman, L. English (eds.), Theories of Mathematics Education,
Advances in Mathematics Education,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-00742-2_31, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010
309