Emotions & Learning

Joy/Pleasure

• Essential for Learning
• Dopamine radiates outward from front of brain to nucleaus accumbens
• Having positive feelings at school connects with positive feelings towards learning

Fear/Threat

• Students will fight back if they can get away with it
• Midbrain (thalamus to amygdala) responds when experiencing a threat
• Threat also impairs hippocampus, rendering new learning impossible
• Long term stress (distress) impairs cognition/working memory and can kill brain cells

Sadness/Disappointment

• We retain negative experience more than positive ones
• Experienced in lower half of the brain
• By remembering negative events for longer, we may be motivated not to repeat them

Anticipation/Curiosity

• Create a positive state of hope
• Triggers an increase in activity in attentional areas of the brain
• Highly motivating
• Positively influences formation of new knowledge

Emotional states are....

Ubiquitous

Connected

Not who we are

Transient

Stable emotional states

Inspired & Deep Learning

Emotions & Relationships at school