Rehuminizing the Physics Classroom via Embodied Learning

The traditional STEM classroom can be a dehuminizing place for both students and instructors. One where we are told to leave our identities, and in some ways our whole bodies, at the door. We need only our brains to learn the content. Dr. Rochelle Gutierrez has studied this dehuminization, especially in the mathematics classroom. She teaches that we can rehuminize our classrooms by focusing on several different dimensions, including "Bodies and Emotion." A common narrative about the physics classroom is that physics is a cold, objective topic that lives outside our bodies. Via the Lesson Study process, I worked with a team of colleagues locally and across the CSU in order to rehuminze our classrooms by focusing on embodied learning. In this talk, I will discuss our process, what we learned, and how this change impacted our students.