Online education and the feeling of (dis)embodiment: A somatic perspective of a learning experience.

The thinking in this short report emerged from the author's participation as an online learner in the TBI 101 course on Mabel Elsworth Todd by Pamela Matt, The Thinking Body Institute. Participation in this course, during a Ph.D. internship period at C-DaRE, Coventry University as a visiting researcher in 2018, prompted reflections on e-learning and feelings of embodied or disembodied experience, particularly in close connection to the author's doctoral research on sensory and creative possibilities of a somatic approach to improvisation in performer training. This report reviews the pedagogical and technological challenges of the TBI 101 study programme in order to better understand the potential connections between (dis)embodied research and online learning, and to offer a foundation for a somatic point of view on e-learning. The thinking offered here investigates different levels of (dis)embodied engagement, suggesting it is dependent on the synergy of the participant's learning style, the technological platform and the pedagogical approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]