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Dear
All
We’ve
discussed the importance of ‘feelings’, or affect, in relation to
aspects of learning on this list before and, of course, hosted Dennis Hayes and
Alan Mortiboys offering their differing views on the topic at the 2009 LDHEN conference.
I’ve been wanting to come back to this and ask people’s thoughts for
a while ... in particular about the idea of a “How do I feel about
learning right now?” factor as one worthy of attention when we are
setting up a learning situation such as a tutorial or lecture. The reason I
raise it today is in part, I confess, that I had to do considerable work on my
own ‘how do I feel about .. ‘ (HOFA!!) factor when I sat down a
couple of hours ago to return to a pile of marking ...
OK,
here’s a familiar story: I have 24 pieces of students’ work (PG
Cert learning and teaching in HE formative) to get through by midweek next week,
and far too many other things at the same time, such that it is essential to do
as much as possible of the marking over the weekend. I worked on six yesterday and
had planned to do another six today - leaving six to fit in tomorrow and Tues
evenings. Well ... to cut to the chase, I prevaricated .. it is now almost 3pm and I’ve done various interesting things –
one of them being to write this email – but not any more of my marking.
Cue
the ‘time-management’ advice?
Well,
on Thursday I did some Learning Development tutorials with five nursing students –
all wanting to talk about essay writing. I asked them how they felt about the
essay: universally they felt challenged, even sick to the stomach in one case. Towards
the end of the tutorials I asked (I paraphrase):
Me:
How do you feel about learning right now?
S:
What do you mean? / I don’t understand
Me:
I mean after this tutorial – and what we’ve discussed
S:
It’s good to be getting some help / I feel better / more able to get on
with it / I will follow the advice about ...
Now,
I know I MUST get on with the marking – and I’ve been doing this job
a long time, so I know I will get it done – I will make myself do it –
and I’m sure many of you are similar in your approach: sometimes we
prevaricate/ do ‘displacement’ things, then (finally – or in
a timely manner) we get down to the task in hand.
I
find a deliberate bringing to consciousness the “HOFA”, when
accompanied by a reasoned (or ‘adult’ in Transactional Analysis terms)
response, is very powerful in ensuring I then go from the sense of general unhappiness/discontent
and poor motivation, to one of functional acceptance, task-directed behaviour
and at least ‘good-enough’ motivation (if not always chirpy
enthusiasm!) – to do what I can – i.e. my best under the circumstances.
Then I achieve my goal ... in learning or in work more generally.
This
works in a number of ways. In TA language, it puts me in touch with my ‘adult’
self and gets me out of a habitual ‘rebellious child’ response to
having a lot of work to do when I’d rather be playing. Another way to see
this, though, is in terms of power and social relations. When I get into ‘HOFA’,
I clarify the situation – I bring to awareness things that I might have been
ignoring or missing – then I can become more active about my situation - I
‘take power’ – I reject a victim status or a powerless role.
I make decisions about what I will do, I manage my time, talk to others, ask
for help, collaborate and fit in what I can etc .. in short, I engage with my situation
in a positive way.
I
think we can make good use of the ‘HOFA’ factor in our work –
as a Learning Development tool. It’s about ensuring we do whatever we can
to get our students to be ‘present’ – to get involved and to
commit to the situation, and to model and suggest ways they can build their own
inner resources ... and this is a good basis for participation, for concentration
and for active learning! I am hugely oversimplifying, I know – am aware that there is a range of
social, psychological and context-dependent aspects needed to link all this
meaningfully to pedagogy – but for now I’m sending these incomplete
thoughts to the list to see if others want to share (sic) their HOFA
moments/thoughts ...
Best
wishes - and now it’s on with the marking ( or a cup of coffee?) !
John