What can educators do?

Some practical suggestions include:

• Discussing with students the potential for discomfort and negative emotion, especially if, like many of us, you aspire to teach your students to handle uncertainty.
• Talking with colleagues about how learning experiences designed to create emotional responses can create uncertainty and anxiety for  educators, so we all understand how to work with emotions, ultimately for the satisfaction and pride of all.
• Creating space for emotional reactions, including opportunities for students to make and learn from mistakes. This may involve you modelling or talking about mistakes you have learnt from and how you handle the consequences.

A useful tool to explore the role emotions play in learning is Pekrun’s Control-Value Theory (Pekrun, 2006). Pekrun’s work can be used with students and with teaching teams to help us appreciate the role emotions play in learning and become more intentional about our use of emotions in teaching and learning.

References:

Pekrun., R. (2006) The Control-Value Theory of Achievement Emotions: Assumptions, Corollaries, and Implications for Educational Research and Practice. Educational Psychology Review 18(4):315-341.