I wanted to pick up on the conversation that started at last week's seminar about the role of emotions in learning. i think its no accident that we wound up at this place, given the focus of the two speakers on issues of community building in educational contexts.
To begin, I wanted to clarify some of the terminology we were using because, for some, it is new territory. The term "affective" is used (particularly in the fields of psychology, education) as an adjective that means: "pertaining to or exciting emotion." "Affect" refers to feeling or emotion.
To give you an idea of the degree to which interest in the role of the affective in learning is being investigated at the institutional level, I point your attention to JCAL, The Journal of Cognitive Affective Learning, a peer reviewed journal published out of Oxford College at Emory University.
I also wanted to direct your attention to this article, "Affective Learning--a manifesto," (linked here) from the October 04 issue of BT Technology Journal, a special issue published in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab. In some ways it is a bizarre piece of literature in that it has, as one of its goals, the development of a theory of affective learning that would enable/support the design of "intelligent" "teaching" computers that could respond to learner's affective responses and needs as well as their cognitive responses and needs.
At this time, I don't want to even begin to say what I think about that project, (I'm some combination of appalled, bemused, and intrigued) BUT, that said, I like this article very much in the ways that it clearly lays out the established importance of affect in learning as well as some of the challenges, terminologies, and theories. I also like it because it is written by and for scientists and I feel therefore that it may help to bridge the humanities/sciences dualism that sometimes colors our conversations about the role of emotion/affect in learning--where the affective is characterized by some as that "touchy feely" stuff that's fine in English classes but has no place in the rigorous realm of the sciences.
I would like to invite all of you to read this article with me and to continue, here on the blog, the conversation we started in the seminar last Friday.
Another issue of interest that was raised, (by Peter) but not yet fully explored was the degree to which we are prone to speak and think of emotion and learning (cognition and affect) as separate things--and even as at odds with each other, rather than interdependent. This issue is addressed some in the article and would bear further exploration here as well.
--Belle
