Emotional Learning

Emotional Learning

• What do you think are some of the ways that emotions play into the classroom?

Emotional Learning

• When we feel right we can think better.• Our brains are highly sensitive to each of our

emotional states. They run our thinking ability in several important ways.

• If you are interested in learning, you need to understand this link.

Emotional Learning

• Our emotions help us focus on our reason and our logic.

• Our logical side helps us set goals, but our emotional side helps provide the passion for us to persevere through trying times.

• Certainly undisciplined emotions can have a negative effect

Emotional Learning

• The prevailing model is that students learn better when their hearts, minds and bodies are engaged.

• Scientist believe that the critical networks that process emotions link the limbic system, the prefrontal cortices, and perhaps most important, the brain areas that map integrate signals from the body

Emotional Learning

• When the body experiences primary emotions, the brain reads them as part of the critical information that insures survival.

• The body serves as a frame of reference for reality• The body generates sensory data, feeds it to the

brain and then integrates it with emotions and intellect for optimal performance

• An over reliance on any one (Body, emotion, brain)

Emotional Learning

• As teachers, we need to develop a greater awareness of all the factors influencing your students

• Try and influence as many as those factors that you can.

Emotional Learning

• Jensen suggest that teachers should never avoid emotions and suggested that Teachers deal with them– Gently– And personally

Emotional Learning

• The chemistry– Chemicals such as neurotransmitters and neuropeptides

are released to many parts of the brain and body, these chemicals govern• Excitement• Depression• Euphoria

• In the end, these chemicals influence our thinking and behavior-

• They control the roller coaster ride ride we are on daily

Emotional Learning

• How are emotions and felling different?

Emotional Learning

• How are emotions and feelings different clip

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtLKVSF28UY

Emotional Learning

• Emotions are generated from biologically automated pathways that are experienced by people universally.

• Feelings are culturally and environmentally developed responses to circumstances- examples include worry, anticipation, frustration, cynicism and optimism

Emotional Learning

• There are six universal emotions? What would you say they are?

Emotional Learning

• Joy• Fear• Surprise• Disgust• Anger• sadness

• Of these emotions which one interferes with learning the most?

Emotional Learning

• Emotion and learning • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8OziK-

6IQI

Emotional Learning

• Students need to learn emotional intelligence skills in a way that acknowledges what is happening in their own bodies.

Emotional Learning

• Exactly what is an emotion, what changes from one to another?

• Did you ever think about it?• Think about it like a scientist, what is it that is

different from one to another?

Emotional Learning

• Your emotional state is composed of an emotion, a specific posture, your thoughts, your bodily sensation, your breathing rate and the chemical balance in your body.

Emotional Learning

• The brain structure involved in emotional processing influence cognition because of their role in the following:– Perceptual processing– Safety or threat evaluation– Motivational evaluation– Self-regulation of states– Memory modulation

Emotional Learning

• Think of the emotions below:

• Joy• Fear• Surprise• Disgust• Anger• sadness

• How is the brain structure involved in emotional processing influence cognition effected by them?

• Look at each one, hw would it effect your memory or you problem solving?

Emotional Learning

• One reason that emotion is so important to learning is its link to memory.

• The amygdala exerts tremendous pressure over the cortex and emotions. – The amygdala’s primary task may be its

responsibility for linking emotional content to memory.

– The amygdala may not store memory as much as it embeds memory with meaning

Emotional Learning

• Anytime we don’t know what is going on, and the likelihood is that it is not good, the amygdala becomes activated

• The amygdala is not only activated by fear, but by the fact that there is an overall sense that something isn’t right at the moment.

Emotional Learning

• Have you ever had hot buttons that are triggered by a student, family member or colleague?

• What are they?

Emotional Learning

• Most of us have some automatic responses that are considered negative.

• Usually they are in response to a perceived threat– The threat may be a put down, sarcasm or a

withdrawal of attention– But it is felt deeply as a threat to your emotional or

physical safety– No matter what your age, your amygdala says strike

back

Emotional Learning

• We rarely get angry for reasons we think- usually we are retriggering an earlier stored reaction.

• The trigger may be nearly insignificant, but the amygdala says react! This is horrible.

• Actually a slow deep breath is actually good strategy for this.

Emotional Learning

• Integrate identification of emotions into instruction after reading a story, or reading about an event in history, ask students how that made them feel?

• Establish new, productive and positive rituals, ex. high fives, hand shakes, music fanfares

• Set a tone of teamwork in the room, team names, cheers gestures

• Use class applause when learners do something well.

Emotional Learning

• Even what we call “professional opinion” includes emotion- it is hard to separate it out.

• Emotion trigger the chemicals changes that change our moods, behavior, and eventually our lives. If People and activities are the content in our lives, emotions are both the contexts and the values we hold.

Emotional Learning

• Outlets for expression.– Schools often have held on to some ritualistic

behaviors that are carried over from ancient survival patterns that are counterproductive to learning

– Some examples of these are• Put-downs, rigid routines, fads, cliques, peer pressure,

arguing over meaningless subjects, nesting or personalizing a space, adhering to group mentality, top dog mentality,

• Rather than battle these like many teachers do, offer alternatives

Emotional Learning

• Alternatives – Acknowledge the role of chemicals in behavior– Not denying the importance and recognition of

feelings and emotions– Provide more meaningful projects and more

individual choice– Use productive rituals to adjust mind and body states– Maintain an absence of threats, high stress, and

artificial deadlines

Emotional Learning

• Alternatives ( Cont.)– Ensure that resources necessary for success are

available to every learner– Create multi status of learners supported peer

review and feedback– Use self assessment tools for nonthreatening

feedback– Assign large group-oriented projects that require

learners to learn to work with others ad problem solve for the greatest good

Emotional Learning

• For years we believed that the frontal lobes were the main domain for thinking.

• The frontal lobes may organize and create the idea for our goals, but the emotions give the drive to reach them.

Emotional Learning

• Some suggest that our emotions are hardwired into our DNA and that it can be passed down to us.– Often we debated that emotional reaction was a

learned ( nurture) trait.– However, this could explain some adoption

situations both positive and negative

Topped

Emotional Learning

• According to this theory, traits such as those below, can be passed down from biological parents– Fearful, suspicious, worried, joyful,

Emotional Learning

• Although too much of emotions either way can be counter productive, we as teachers should embrace emotions to inform us about instruction– A child does not want to speak in front of class,

why?– A child is afraid to post his composition?

Emotional Learning

• The role of specific emotions in learning– To bind learning– To help determine what is real and what is

believed and feel– To activate long term memory– To help make faster decisions by nonconscious

and gut level judgments– To help make better decision by engaging our

values

Emotional Learning

• Emotional events receive preferential processing

• When the brain is over stimulated when strong emotions are present, the brain becomes chemically stimulated which helps recall things better.

Emotional Learning

The old theory, was get control of students to then teach.

Now because of the importance of emotion, the theory is get the students emotions engaged first

Emotional Learning

• Ways to help children get control– Role model- exhibit love of learning, bring

something to class that you were in the process of learning, something that excites you

– Celebrate- Throw parties, Provide acknowledgements, incorporate high-fives, team cheers, food music, decorations and costumes. Show off students work.

Emotional Learning

• Ways to help children get control– Controversy – set up a debate, a dialogue, and

academic decathlon, a game show or panel discussion– Physical rituals- clapping patterns, movements , theme

songs, Incorporate arrival and departure rituals that are fun and quick and frequent to prevent Boredom

– Introspection- include assignments that require journaling, small group discussion, story swapping, surveys interviews and other refection tasks

Emotional Learning

• The brain has three criteria that must be fulfilled in order for it to” know that it knows something” also called the self-convincer state.– Modality- the learning must be reinforced in the

learner’s dependent modality ( i.e. VAKT) We must see it and hear it or feel it

– Frequency- New learning must get reinforced with repetition. The number varies from one to twenty

– Duration- the learning must be validated for a length of time anywhere from two second to several days.

Emotional Learning

• If children believe that they are failures, modality, frequency, duration must be present if you want to convince them otherwise

• Often children say they did not learn anything at school when they did. This is because the self-convincer state was not activated

Emotional Learning