Towards a Somatic Pedagogy of Artificial Intelligence: interdisciplinary reflections between Embodied Cognition and Educational Design
Abstract
This article offers a critical reinterpretation of artificial intelligence (AI) in education through the lens of embodied cognition and somatic learning. Moving beyond the traditional computational approach focused on content delivery and algorithmic efficiency, it explores the transformative potential of embodied conversational agents (ECAs) as somatic partners in instructional design and teacher training. Through an interdisciplinary theoretical review and a methodological analysis of multimodal interactions, the paper highlights how these agents can activate situated, affective, and corporeally grounded reflection processes, contributing to transformative teacher professionalism. Special attention is given to the role of ECAs in curriculum design oriented toward sustainability and in supporting educational contexts on the margins. The article advocates for the need to envision a somatic ecology of educational AI, grounded in ethical co-design, bodily awareness, and dialogic presence. Although still emerging, this perspective calls for further theoretical formalization and extensive empirical validation, yet promises to redefine how we understand AI in education: not as a “technical object,” but as a “pedagogical subject”.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Fabrizio Schiavo, Giuseppina Rita Jose Mangione, Monica Di Domenico, Pio Alfredo Di Tore
Questo lavoro è fornito con la licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 4.0 Internazionale.
