Learning is Feeling

Stuck in a 'learner’s' block? Try changing how you feel.

Learning is an emotional experience - happiness, fear, surprise, confusion are all feelings we have felt while learning something - some more than others.

Learning and feeling are intertwined. Yet as learners and people who work in learning, we pay little attention to this.

Changing how you feel can seem like a daunting task, but here are 3 ways in which you can get started:

1/ Look through the feelings lens Try to classify feelings in 3 buckets for you:

Additive (+): Feelings that helped you learn better

Subtractive (-): Feelings that you felt stopped you from learning effectively

Neutral (=): Feelings that neither helped not took away from learning

As a learner -

• Think of the last thing you learnt. What were different things that you were feeling? Try to classify in the 3 buckets listed above.
• What does this tell you about how you learn?

As a learning designer -

• Think of the last learning experience you designed. What were your learners feeling? Classify them into the 3 buckets listed above.
• What does this tell you about the learning experience you designed?

**2/ Pick feelings you want to focus on **

As a learner -

• Think of an instance where you feel you learnt best. What are feelings you associate with that experience? Surprise? Fear? Curious?
• When you’re learning something new, try to think of ways in which you can incorporate those feelings.
• By focusing on feelings, you can stay motivated and figure out how you learn best.

As a learning designer -

• Think of the feelings you want your learners to experience while they learn.
• These feelings don’t all have to be happy - confusion and surprise can be really powerful feelings to include in learning experiences!

Here is a list of feelings that you can pick from:

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3/ Make a feelings journey map
Think of a specific learning journey this could be a single session or a longer program (Example, One trigonometry class vs a semester of trigonometry). Try to map all the feelings you picked in a map like this -

As a learner -

Think of how the ‘subtractive’ or ‘neutral’ feelings could that be changed to ‘additive’? What would you have done differently?

How can this inform the way you learn in the future?

As a learning designer -

Create this feelings journey map for any learning experiences you design.

By being more aware of what you want your learners to feel, you can create meaningful and engaging learning experiences for your learners.

By recognising that learning is feeling and feeling is learning you can learn and teach better. Next time you’re thinking of learning, go beyond content, facilitation and assessment and think of feelings first!