In Curiosity, he reminds us that from day 1 of our lives, we are curious about things - if something is different than we expect, we will spend more time on it; if we get something in detail explained to us, we spend less time exploring it (and thus learning less). Novelty sparks curiosity but can also create stress and anxiety, counteracting any kind of learning. This means that for instruction, we need to find essential or mega questions to guide our students' learning - and we need to give them space and practice to develop their own questions.
One way to start sparking curiosity in class is to ask what do you notice, what do you wonder about.
Curiosity tends to be something an individual develops, but Sociality is the dimension that connects us with others. Humans are one of a few species where large groups take care of the immature - being social is essential to us, in isolation we become sick. Humans learn through imitation (here is where mirror neurons in our brain come into play), and communication is the next step in imitation.
One interesting point here is that the mother-infant language has been undervalued in its role of language development as women have not been seen as "evolutionary movers." But this understanding appears to be shifting. Other social activities that humans learn through are play, story telling, and modeling. Bandura's modeling theory and Vygotsky's zone of proximal development show why these ways of interacting create learning opportunities.
For instructors this means that we need to create a positive learning environment, a sense of belonging and community in our classes for all of our students. Modeling not only assignment but behavior is also important to move students from novice to expert in our fields - whether this is modeling how to conduct an experiment, modeling how to cite a paper, or modeling how to make a mistake and learn from it, all of these are essential to giving our students the chance to learn and grow in the higher education learning environment.
Eyler's next major concept is Emotion. Emotion ties directly into us being part of a group (Sociality) and being curious (Curiosity), as positive emotion allows us to participate more fully and allow us to think more effectively. While a negative emotion can be helpful to learning up to a certain point (consider the stress of a deadline that may help us focus, or, even more importantly, pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones to learn something new), too much negative emotion triggers fight or flight behavior and our survival instinct kicks in, essentially cutting off the blood flow to our brain. Emotions are also connected to memories, and as we build on our existing learning based in memories, the more we can emotion connect to learning, the more memories are formed, the more connections are created and learning occurs.
None of this means that we as instructors need to be come entertainers to create a happy environment. Instead, as Eyler suggests, it means that we show the relevance of the material to the students so that they see why they are learning content and skills - this in itself creates satisfaction and happiness, though joy may be a better word. Showing our enthusiasm and passion for the subject area will also trigger joy in the students as we create a social system of learners, and finally, caring for our students to help them be successful will also create positive emotions. Eyler quotes Nel Noddings, reminding us that "the student is infinitely more important than the subject matter."
Authenticity connects back into showing our enthusiasm and passion and making the material relevant to students. Research shows that a lack of authenticity leads to short attention spans. Long lectures do not tend to be authentic for the students, so the lose focus and do not learn. Providing authentic learning experiences, instead, will give students the chance to practice, and learn from mistakes. This leads to the final concept:
Failure - mistakes are essential for learning, but in a high stakes environment like the university, convincing students of this is difficult. Giving them low-stakes opportunities for making mistakes and learning from them is key; faculty need to remember to be transparent about this process as students have a hard time differentiating between high and low stakes assignments. This transparency can also include more of a discussion on how we learn - that we tend to jump to conclusions without reflection because of habits, that we need to remind ourselves to slow down and think, and that we learn best when our expectations are violated.
But this kind of productive failure also needs to be set in a positive learning environment. If the basic needs of food, rest, hydration, and safety are not met, learning will not happen. Giving students safe spaces to learn is essential -- for all students. Giving students the support network to learn to just keep going and try one more time is also important - for all students. Not giving students grades may be one way to create such an environment. Giving students space to learn skills and content that we think they should already know but, for some circumstance, have not learned yet or did learn but are not recognizing as applying in our learning context is another strategy.
Eyler's next major concept is Emotion. Emotion ties directly into us being part of a group (Sociality) and being curious (Curiosity), as positive emotion allows us to participate more fully and allow us to think more effectively. While a negative emotion can be helpful to learning up to a certain point (consider the stress of a deadline that may help us focus, or, even more importantly, pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones to learn something new), too much negative emotion triggers fight or flight behavior and our survival instinct kicks in, essentially cutting off the blood flow to our brain. Emotions are also connected to memories, and as we build on our existing learning based in memories, the more we can emotion connect to learning, the more memories are formed, the more connections are created and learning occurs.
None of this means that we as instructors need to be come entertainers to create a happy environment. Instead, as Eyler suggests, it means that we show the relevance of the material to the students so that they see why they are learning content and skills - this in itself creates satisfaction and happiness, though joy may be a better word. Showing our enthusiasm and passion for the subject area will also trigger joy in the students as we create a social system of learners, and finally, caring for our students to help them be successful will also create positive emotions. Eyler quotes Nel Noddings, reminding us that "the student is infinitely more important than the subject matter."
Authenticity connects back into showing our enthusiasm and passion and making the material relevant to students. Research shows that a lack of authenticity leads to short attention spans. Long lectures do not tend to be authentic for the students, so the lose focus and do not learn. Providing authentic learning experiences, instead, will give students the chance to practice, and learn from mistakes. This leads to the final concept:
Failure - mistakes are essential for learning, but in a high stakes environment like the university, convincing students of this is difficult. Giving them low-stakes opportunities for making mistakes and learning from them is key; faculty need to remember to be transparent about this process as students have a hard time differentiating between high and low stakes assignments. This transparency can also include more of a discussion on how we learn - that we tend to jump to conclusions without reflection because of habits, that we need to remind ourselves to slow down and think, and that we learn best when our expectations are violated.
But this kind of productive failure also needs to be set in a positive learning environment. If the basic needs of food, rest, hydration, and safety are not met, learning will not happen. Giving students safe spaces to learn is essential -- for all students. Giving students the support network to learn to just keep going and try one more time is also important - for all students. Not giving students grades may be one way to create such an environment. Giving students space to learn skills and content that we think they should already know but, for some circumstance, have not learned yet or did learn but are not recognizing as applying in our learning context is another strategy.
