Do you remember last time when you felt inspired within a learning experience?
How did that impact your learning?
Here is what science has to say about inspiration in learning:
💫 Inspiration, as a positive emotion, makes us more open to learning, more receptive, orientates us towards “bigger picture” and strengthens our ability to make connections and associations between parts of content
💫 Being open means we are more attentive, curious, and motivated to think actively, which are all the elements that have a big impact on successful learning
💫 Focus on connections and associations between different parts of content is crucial to memorize well and to recall information easier. Looking for meaningful connections also deepens our understanding of the content.
💫 In terms of energy, inspiration is a gently uplifting emotion that makes us feel energetic (yet not too intensely, which would be dangerous for our focus) and motivated – it is not very action-oriented, but more directed around soaking up what is ahead of us.
💫 When inspired, we see things around us in slightly more positive light, which means we are more receptive to content we are discovering, as well as more inclined to connect with others and engage in meaningful conversations – and in active learning, it’s the conversations with peers that will give us many news insights and perspectives, and help us process more deeply.
Feeling inspired is one of the best emotional & mental states for most of the learning experiences.
(Why most and not all? ‘Cause in the end this will depend on your learning goal, audience, topic.)
Inspiration is just one of many emotions that we, as trainers, might wanna strive to nudge our learners into.
Because, in the end, one of the crucial things to build emotions optimal for the learning process is the diversity of emotions within that learning experience.
The goal is to create is a meaningful, engaging flow of different emotional experiences.
This will make the learning experience engaging, impactful and memorable.
So, do sprinkle your workshop or a course with moments of inspiration – but don’t stop there!
For real impact, build a comprehensive emotional journey with diverse steps and levels.
Take a moment to reflect!
Which emotions would you like to entice in your learner more often? Make a list of “potentially great emotions for learning.”
- What kind of flow of emotions would you like the learner to have in your next workshop? Do try to think about it in an example of a specific workshop – which emotions at which point in time in the agenda, and within each of the activities.
- What are your tools and ideas of how you can support learners to have more of those emotions? What further tools you might be missing? How can you find and learn those?
I hope these questions will bring you some great insights and help you turn your next workshop into (even) deeper learning experience.
These are also some of the questions that we explore deeply and discuss and exchange insights about with a group of amazing trainers at Optimal Emotions for Learning online course.
- Curious what else science has to say about emotions in learning?
- Curious to explore how we as trainers can leverage that in practice?
- Excited about connecting with a group of trainers to hear diverse perspectives and experiences and exchange tips and tools?
Join us at the course Optimal Emotions for Learning online course. It will be insightful, eye-opening and exciting.
And while waiting for a deep and practical dive in the course, start by exploring the insights from science about emotions in learning in this free ebook.
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