{"id":22604,"date":"2019-05-27T08:07:15","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T12:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/edc\/?p=22604"},"modified":"2021-08-13T10:07:39","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T14:07:39","slug":"blog-emotional-learners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/2019\/blog-emotional-learners\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog: Emotional Learners"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ali Arya,<\/em>\u00a0Associate Dean (Planning and Awards), Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs and Associate Professor, School of Information Technology<\/em><\/p>\n

A few years ago, I had a bright and enthusiastic student in one of my first-year classes who was always cheerful and eager to get involved in many academic and extracurricular activities, from volunteering in conferences to planning holiday parties. When I had her again in the fourth year, I noticed that she didn\u2019t have the same attitude. She was quiet, less active and somewhat bitter. When I curiously asked her if everything was OK and what had happened, she said, \u201cYou guys did it,\u201d referring to the university.<\/p>\n

This encounter, and many other conversations with students, made me wonder how we emotionally affect our students. It is not uncommon to find those who are frustrated, overwhelmed, stressed and disappointed, those who can\u2019t wait to get out, don\u2019t trust us anymore, or have given up any lofty learning ideas and just want a passing grade. There is a strong body of knowledge discussing the affective aspects of education, the role of emotional intelligence, and frameworks, such as social and emotional learning. But it seems that many of these topics are ignored or even unheard of among faculty, as many of us continue to think of learning as a purely cognitive process and our students as learning machines.<\/p>\n

We do not perform well if we are not appreciated or don\u2019t have a supportive environment (or even if we are suffering from a domestic problem). Then why would we expect our students to perform well if we are not providing them with an environment in which their emotional needs are acknowledged and addressed? To what level have these needs been considered in the design and implementation of our academic plans and practices?<\/p>\n

To answer those questions within the context of our university, and with the help of some colleagues, I conducted a study with both an online survey and in-person interviews with Carleton students. The results and my reflections on them were presented at the 2019 Spring Conference<\/a>. They were quite eye-opening:<\/p>\n