The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

  Thomas Henry Huxley

Information's pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience.”

We are putting the 'physical' in the 'metaphysical'

Don Fried and colleagues

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

The Center for Physical Cognition In Practice

The Center for Physical Cognition in Practice (CPCP)

The mission of the Center for Physical Cognition in Practice is to examine the physical nature of cognition, with research programs that focus on the role of the body in learning and thinking, and the use of physical experiences in education.  The central assumption behind the founding of the Center for Physical Cognition is that cognition cannot be properly understood when divorced from the physical organism and physical environment, and that physicality is a fundamental quality of cognition.

Unlike more theoretical labs (many of which are focused on autonomous robots), this center will focus on research that puts embodied cognition into practice, primarily with people (not robots).

The center will have three primary functions:

1. Communicating and educating about this paradigm shift through interdisciplinary colloquia and establishing a lecture series aimed at non-cognitive-scientists.
2. Establishing academic programs that educate teachers, business people, health professionals, and instructional technologists in putting embodied cognition into practice.
3. Conducting research on physical cognition in practice.

Artificial Life

SILC

IMBES

LLL

CAST

RodneyBrooks

Mitchell Resnick

Linda Smith

Andy Clark

JeffreyElman

Susan Sgorbati

Nora Newcombe

Barbara Tversky

November 18, 2008 7 pm, WCSU. Todd Oppenheimer will give a talk on the role of technology in elementary school.

Spring Semester, 2009 Examining the role of ordinary experience and practice in math learning in local public schools. Practicum credit or small stipend available.  Contact Dr. Flanagan during Fall Semester, 2008.