Jan Louise Huyton’s recent paper led me to think about the importance of the
support and development of students for whom affective needs directly
underpin (or undermine?) their cognitive and interpersonal development. I’ll
illustrate what I mean by three brief examples.
Last session, a student for whom I was personal tutor, contacted me because
she judged her part in a forthcoming group presentation would be sub-
standard. She wanted to enhance her competence. As we talked, and looked
over her outline, it became apparent that her competence was not in
question; her need was to overcome a lack of confidence. We worked on
that, the presentation was otherwise unchanged, and she was told it was
delivered successfully.
Another student, reflecting on critical incidents in his work-placement,
considered himself unfairly judged by his line manager. He proposed to
confront the manager and declare his indignation – but after facilitated
reflection, he instead adopted an approach borrowed from the assertiveness
literature. He was successfully in changing his manager’s judgement.
Several students approached me after I had suggested to their group the
merits of distinguishing between “need to know” and “nice to know” when
skimming and then focusing in on resources drawn from the web. They were
apprehensive about the risk of missing items of potential value. I persuaded
them to suspend disbelief and experiment, and reassured them that the risk in
this venture would be minimal. They found the improvement in their
effectiveness noticeable.
Overcoming lack of confidence; setting aside indignation; risk taking. These I
am taking as goals or outcomes in the affective domain. I am finding that if I
help students to dig out affective needs, and to engage with them
constructively, it’s almost as if the cognitive and interpersonal development
then takes care of itself.
Do others find it worthwhile to concentrate on affective learning needs?
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