[375] MTSU Hosts Free Lecture On 'Embodiment In Education' March 29

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 19, 2010
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Lisa L. Rollins, 615-898-2919, or lrollins@mtsu.edu

MTSU HOSTS FREE LECTURE ON ‘EMBODIMENT IN EDUCATION’ MARCH 29
Upcoming Talk by Scholar Glenberg ‘Accessible to a Wide Audience,’ Report Organizers

(MURFREESBORO)—“Embodiment in Education,“ a free public lecture by Art Glenberg, will be presented at 12:40 p.m. Monday, March 29, in the State Farm Lecture Hall (Room S102) of MTSU’s Business and Aerospace Building.
"Dr. Glenberg is a leading researcher into the role that the body plays in cognition and perception (and) … a pioneer in this type of research and its application to education," noted Dr. William Langston, MTSU psychology professor.
In addition to the upcoming lecture’s appeal for those interested in education, “There is also a significant psychology component,” said Langston, who added that Glenberg’s talk will be “very accessible to a wide audience.”
Regarding his lecture topic, Glenberg has said, “It is clear that one of the 20th century¹s great educational thinkers (Maria Montessori) believed that there is a close connection between the body and education. But why should we believe it?”
To answer this question, Glenberg, after a brief discussion of embodiment theory, will review data showing an intimate connection between the body and simple mathematics. Then, he will devote considerably more time to a review of data culled from a research project investigating a reading intervention based on an embodied theory of language comprehension.
“This intervention has been successfully applied across a variety of populations of young readers,” Glenberg has observed, “and we are beginning to explore its application in science and mathematics.”
Sponsored by the Department of Psychology and those involved with MTSU’s math and science education Ph.D., the lecture will be followed by a question-and-answer session.
“This event is mostly an overview of how research into embodiment could be applied to education, and (this public lecture will be) introductory in nature,” Langston added. “Dr. Glenberg has not been (to MTSU) before, and we were lucky to be able to get on his schedule.
For more information on the March 29 lecture, please contact Langston by calling 615-898-5489 or via e-mail at wlangsto@mtsu.edu.

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With three Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and former faculty, Middle Tennessee State University confers master’s degrees in 10 areas, the Specialist in Education degree, the Doctor of Arts degree and the Doctor of Philosophy degree. MTSU is ranked among the top 100 public universities in the nation in the Forbes “America’s Best Colleges” 2009 survey.