About the book
Thank you for your interest in The Emotional Learner.
Studies often emphasize performance changes and ignore the subjectively much more striking changes in mood and memory that accompany performance ~ Sarah-Jayne Blackmore & Uta Frith, The Learning Brain.
The Emotional Learner originates from the premise that learning is a cognitive, social and emotional process and that emotions can impact learning in both positive and negative ways.
It is not a book about mental health, although it does cover certain areas such as anxiety. Neither is it a book about Emotional Intelligence, although it does discuss aspects related to EI such as emotion regulation.
The Emotional Learner isn’t a book of quick fixes and prescriptive advice, although it does offer guidance on how to deal with emotional states, often offering techniques that have long been successfully used with psychology, psychotherapy and sports science.
Main themes include:
- What we mean by ‘emotions’ and why they are important to learning
- The role of learning orientations (mastery versus performance)
- The difference between activating and deactivating emotional states
- The relationship between cognition and emotions
- The emotional antecedents of motivation and engagement
- Anxiety, boredom, interest and curiosity and how these help and hinder learning
- The teenage learner
- Fear of failure, how it evolves and how to combat it