The Teaching and Learning Innovation Digest - May 2023

welcome and important; and can be integrated
into the classroom to support engagement
with both the course content and with one
another. Learning is not simply about engaging
with our cognitive functions. Learning relates
to all parts of the self. As I have learned and
experienced, most predominantly through
the Indigenous Teachings shared with
me, learning is holistic and our knowing
is rooted in the heart, carried in the body,
processed through the spirit (B. Brant,
Mohawk Nation, Tyendinaga, Traditional
Teachings. Personal communication, October
2008-February 2023). Of course, that includes
how our pandemic experiences have shaped
us as we show up to learn, and return to
the classroom.
Embodied awareness as a methodology to
support students
Embodied Awareness, as a methodology,
engages whole-body-listening and learning
(listening to course content, to colleagues, to
oneself, and more). It also supports students
to express and share what they know from
those embodied places while incorporating
more traditional academic ways of knowing
and learning. The classroom becomes a
place for learning both didactic information
and how to hold respectful and empathic
space for the explorations and shares of their
colleagues. Finally, inviting sharing knowledge
through connection to self and others helps
to shift the nervous system from a cortisol
stress response to a more supportive learning
environment that releases tensions from
pandemic isolation by rebuilding a sense
of community.
Embodied Awareness 2 is a series of ‘steps’
or elements, using tools to help ourselves
and each other show up in common
spaces in states of being fully present and
feeling fully alive (Hedva, 2012). To bring
Embodied Awareness into teaching and
learning spaces is to invite holistic education
into being. Holistic education invites all
dimensions of our being: mind, body,
heart, spirit, and creative energy into the
classroom. Whereas traditional, western
education spaces, and classrooms have a
predominantly cognitive-behavioral focus with
little attention paid to how the body, heart, and
spirit play major roles in the ways we ingest,
metabolize, and activate learning. In the
helping fields, how we show up to serve others
in their personal empowerment and community
engagement is largely informed by how we
show up for ourselves. Thus learning to selfsupport
while holding supportive space for
others not only supports learning, but also
enriches our professional development in the
human services.
2 To learn more about the specifics of this work, I invite
my colleagues to connect with me and/or check out
the published works of Dr. Beth Hedva. What Hedva
has done through this work is a blended integration
of ancient and indigenous cross-cultural healing
practices and spiritual traditions with modern
psychological best practices to promote an integrative
approach to both personal and community health and
wellness (Hedva, 2012). It is much more than just
being in touch with our own body’s sensations and
feelings. Embodiment is about connection. It is about
connection to your inner Source, your divine Self
(with a capital ’S‛). Embodied Awareness is also about
connection with others, your environment, and our
world (2020).
There are five elements or ‘steps’ to Embodied Awareness as a pedagogical approach to classroom
facilitation: connection, observation, listening, engagement, empowerment.
CONNECT
OBSERVE
LISTEN
ENGAGE
EMPOWER
Five Elements of Embodied Awareness as a Facilitation Method for Course Integration
Connect within: to self and
personal spiritual resources or
personal belief system through an
embodied experience
Connect with other(s): energetically
and with respect to course content of
the day
Use of mental/cognitive information,
analysis, and awareness
Opportunity to practice deep listening
Opportunity for students to take stock
of course content and synthesize
information by sensing into emotions,
thoughts, beliefs, subtle intuitive
senses to inspire new perspectives
and insights into course content
through experiential process:
expressive arts, self-reflection,
and/or discussion relating to the
topical content utilizing classroom
community engagement of content
Reflection on strengths-based
components of the learning.
What aspect of the day’s course
content has ignited a sense of
agency or action to be taken?
What can be done with this
learning experience?
Examples:
• Breath Work, Body movement, Body Tapping, Artistic
expression, Connection to Music, song, Smudging.
• Cultural ceremony; prayer; meditation (facilitated by
instructor, volunteers, class members from different
cultural backgrounds).
Examples:
• Pairs or small-group shares, Movement activities, Ice breaker
activities related to content.
• Reflections on the homework or content of previous class.
• Kahoot content review.
Examples:
• Delivery of course content.
• Offering a range of cognitive options with respect to course
content connections (ie. integration of UDL strategies of
Teaching and Learning).
• Use of self-assessment instruments.
Examples:
• Students have the opportunity to listen to each other express
their unique engagements with course content within small
groups or the larger classroom community.
• To deepen listening consider providing a ‘vocabulary of
feelings’ to name and process emotional experiences evoked.
Examples:
• Body scanning activities to acknowledge where the learning
experiences registers within the body.
• Guided Image techniques to engage perception of inner
impressions (gut feelings, sensing temperature or texture,
visualization of images, colors or symbols, inner listening) to
connect with energy in the body.
• Expand sensory awareness into embodied awareness, by
engaging intuitive insights, creativity, inspire creative projects
to help students integrate course content.
• Movement activities to release, move, and play with energetic
experiences in the body.
Examples:
• Share a word of Empowerment related to the day’s content.
• Name a new learning.
• Describe some new action that can be taken to move the
learning into the world of personal/professional experience.
• Reflect on some aspect of the learning that student can teach
to another person in their life and who and why them.
• Identify a “take-away” of white board as you leave
the classroom.
The above chart displays examples of what applying the five elements of Embodied Awareness can
look like within the classroom. The order to how these elements are integrated is not as important as
all five being included in any given class/lesson. That being said, it is best practice to at least start
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