Is Virtual Learning Just a Cave of Shadows?

Embodiment as the Missing Link Between Virtual Learning and Personal Development

The limitations of virtual learning are well-known, especially with problems concerning disengagement and deficiency in progression. As a result, experts have suggested that supplementing virtual learning with educational theory can make a big difference.

For example, consider Cooperative Learning Theory (CLT), which has three core principles and a supporting subset:

Core

1. Use small groups
2. Share common goals
3. Goals should be cooperative and equally applied and measured

Subset

Activities should include:

• positive interdependence
• individual accountability
• promotive interaction
• social skills
• group processing

A recent study shows that implementing aspects of CLT can benefit not only virtual learning but also asynchronous learning.

However, the main concern for most of us (i.e. students, teachers, and parents) is whether at root virtual learning can be a substitute for in-person learning. Common sense would say, “Of course it can't!”

So let’s see if that view and sentiment holds water.

To Bridge or Not to Bridge

Consider the following example:

There are two teams of engineers working separately to design a bridge for an area with great geographical nuance and variety. The area also suffers from the occasional earthquake, so the bridge has to meet specific safety requirements.

Team Gamay is using in-person observation method of the area. Team Bardolino is using a virtual process of design which employs the best and most recent accurate footage of the area.

Which team would you trust the most to create a bridge that suits the geographical requisites?

Technology is king, isn’t it? Humans are liable to err, and so technological systems allow for more extensive processes for checking accuracy, suitability, and application.

Yet, as with most of these types of thought experiments, the answer is not an either/or. Indeed, there is a case to be made that even when the two modes of investigation and design are co-mingled, the in-person mode has a primary, foundational role.

A study by the sociologist Lucy Suchman (2000) shows that the engineering design process would suffer if it was virtual only. This is because engineers often use embodied experience to get a sense of a vista in order to build out their CAD (Computer Aided Design) models. In other words, embodied engagement provides a definite vantage point from somewhere that allows them to construct an appropriate model. I’ll come back to the importance of “somewhere” below.

For now, let us note how embodied practice is different from fine-tuning at the CAD station, where one is sitting in front of a monitor with elbows in, glaring at a screen. Being embodied is not just connection but a way of interpreting and understanding.

Is Embodiment Integral to Learning?

The bridge-design thought experiment may be helpful for us in getting a sense as to whether embodiment is crucial to learning in general. Let’s just bullet point the key features we can take away from our engineers.

Embodied Teamwork in Bridge Construction

• Shared Spatial Awareness: Engineers physically navigating the construction site develop a shared understanding of the terrain, distances, and spatial relationships. This “vista” is crucial for effective collaboration as it provides a shared referential point which can act as the ground zero for virtual design.
• Embodied Problem-Solving: The physical act of constructing a bridge involves kinesthetic engagement with materials, testing structural integrity through movement and force, and using one’s body to understand the physicality of the structure. Engineers use their bodies to interpret and respond to challenges in a way that cannot be replicated through a screen and mouse.
• Tacit Knowledge and Communication: Much of the knowledge shared among engineers is tacit and emerges through embodied interactions and shared physical experiences. This is communicated through gesture, pointing, demonstration, and shared attention.

Let’s think about each of these in the context of a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) like Zoom or Teams.?

• Limitations of Virtual Spatial Awareness: In a virtual classroom, students lack a shared physical environment and therefore that shared referential point. While they may be able to see the same virtual objects or environments, they cannot engage with them bodily which fundamentally changes their relationship to the material and to each other. While video calls can help with shared attention, they cannot replicate this shared spatial awareness.
• Challenges in Embodied Problem-Solving: Collaborative tasks in a virtual classroom, especially those requiring spatial reasoning or creative problem-solving (like geometry, or certain kinds of design tasks), might suffer due to the lack of physical manipulation and interaction. Even advanced simulations cannot fully replicate the tactile and kinesthetic feedback of real-world engagement.
• Impoverished Tacit Knowledge Sharing: The richness of non-verbal, embodied communication — such as gestures, facial expressions, and body language — is reduced in virtual environments. Much of the richness of shared knowledge and understanding is lost as students cannot engage in embodied demonstrations and other forms of tacit, physical knowledge sharing.

So, if the foregoing holds water, what does that potentially make VLEs?

The Cave of VLE

As I mentioned at the start with reference to the CLT study, there are ways VLEs can be mitigated and supported so that teaching can be more effective.

However, even the effort of integrating the core principles and supporting subset of CLT may not be enough. They could be missing something essential to the point where the lack of it may result in a rather poor semblance of learning.

Call this poor cousin, The Cave – yes, as in Plato’s allegory in the Republic, where the cave inhabitants take the shadows being flickered against the wall as reality.

Here's the the argument:

VLE can potentially be a cave even when supported by CLT if it fails to develop students as persons.

Most of the VLE strategy is aimed at skill enhancement, especially in view of meeting learning outcomes. But a key effect of education in general is the liberation of human potential, or the development of one's person.

To get a better sense as to why VLE might miss unlocking human potential, let’s go back to the observation that in designing the bridge, the engineering teams used an embodied mode of investigation to get a sense of a vista from which they could build out the design. This vista, to recall, is a somewhere – a point of embodied reference.

It is this kind of reference which is not only specific, but personal. It is personal not just in the sense of involving one’s private life, emotions, and values, but also in the sense of building the person. The person is composed of the private as well as our character and capabilities. To be more a person is then to be a more capable actor.

We can understand how VLE can miss development of the person according to the concepts of tacit and personal knowledge.?

Somewhere: Tacit Knowledge & Personal Knowledge

Tacit knowledge is knowledge that we possess and utilize, but which we cannot fully articulate or explain. It's the knowledge embedded in our skills, habits, and practices. It is often acquired through experience and embodiment. For example, activities like playing a musical instrument, surfing, running properly, and wine tasting involve unobvious and implied understanding developed through practice.

In virtual learning environments, the opportunities for developing tacit knowledge through hands-on experiences and physical interactions are limited. A student may learn about the theory of carpentry, but without the physical act of sawing, hammering, and planing, they will miss out on crucial tacit knowledge that is developed through embodied practice with these tools.

In fact, as the sociologist and anthropologist Marcel Mauss (1872-1950) has shown, the way we use tools is often culturally informed. He demonstrated how the use of tools expresses culture. When observing both British and French soldiers in WWI, the two neither dug trenches nor marched in similar ways . . . to the point where the two could not keep in sync when marching together.

In his book Personal Knowledge (1958), the scientist Michael Polanyi argues that all knowledge is ultimately personal, as it is shaped by our individual experiences, beliefs, and commitments; and it involves a passionate commitment to what is known. It includes tacit knowledge but also encompasses our explicit beliefs, values and the way we integrate knowledge into our lives.

This means that tacit knowledge ultimately rests on our personal experience. But moreover(!), this does not presume just because we are individual persons, we are able to gain knowledge and understanding through our respective experiences. One could be "poor" in the ability to learn from experiences.

Our person, or personhood, must be developed enough to be able to be open to opportunities for learning. Having a more developed person tends to mean being able to know how to welcome and process experiences. And key to this knowledge or wisdom is understanding how we are embodied beings; much of our personal development relies on the range of our embodied experiences. So, though the body “encloses” the sense of the personal (em-bodiment), it is also an opening onto the world.

It is, to recall Lucy Suchman's study, our vista . . . our somewhere.

Conclusion: Don't Float, Seek the Grounding of Somewhere

Both tacit and personal knowledge are deeply intertwined with embodied learning. Our physical interactions with the world shape our tacit understanding, while our personal knowledge provides the context and meaning for these experiences.

However, virtual learning can hinder the development of personal knowledge as it provides less scope for learners to integrate knowledge into their lived experiences and to develop a passionate commitment to what they are learning. This is because the lack of physical engagement with materials, teachers, and other students naturally constrains the opportunity of experience itself.

It's all in the screen. A disembodied, floating head in a cave versus . . .

the hustle and bustle of a classroom as the bell rings; the teacher calling for students to sit down; the silent hush after books are slid atop the desks; the side glances and excitement of seeing your friends across the aisle; the inability to hide in view of the spotlight of knowledge, as the teacher asks you to explain why Macbeth’s speech about “a sound and fury signifying nothing” does not represent Shakespeare’s view of life.

It turns out developing as a person is a lot like building bridges. You need to be embodied somewhere to get it right.

About the Author

Todd Mei (PhD) is former Associate Professor of Philosophy specializing in hermeneutics, the philosophy of work and economics, and ethics. He is currently a researcher and consultant in meaningful work and is founder of Philosophy2u. With over 20 years of experience in teaching, researching, and publishing, Todd enjoys bringing insight, innovation, and worklife revolution to organizations, businesses, and individuals.

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