Affectivity in Teaching

The AffecTeaching is envisioned as a three-week module that will cover all major identified areas that relate to the development of a social and emotional learning (SEL) curriculum (i.e. instructional planning, teaching and assessment strategies, etc.). SEL lays the foundation for safe and nurturing educational environments within which students can learn about themselves and others by explicitly tackling and experiencing concepts such as diversity, self-image, and responsibility. The above concepts, among many others, can be transferred to other lessons and school activities, since social and emotional learning does not end in one classroom. By engaging with SEL concepts and skills, students can further achieve academic goals and develop better relationships with their family and friends. In this way, happiness and wellbeing are centralized in a social manner and positive habits are developed allowing prosperity and growth.

Within the module students will understand the role that emotions play in learning and teaching, learn to use vocabulary related to positive and negative emotions, and learn how to design learning activities that promote students’ belonging as well as social and emotional competencies.

For achiving the above goals, the Trialogical Approach to Learning (TLA) will be used as a pedagogical approach to learning. TLA integrates “monological” and “dialogical” approaches to learning with  intentional processes involved in the collaborative creation and development of knowledge artifacts that are useful for the community (shared objects). TLA is applied through six Design Principles that guide the planning of technology-based teaching and learning activities designed to facilitate shared engagement with knowledge artifacts. These are: (a) organization of activities around shared objects, (b) supporting integration of personal and collective agency and work, (c) fostering long-term processes of knowledge advancement, (d) emphasizing development and creativity through knowledge transformations and reflection, (e) promotion of cross-fertilization, (f) provision of flexible tools for developing artifacts and practices.

Within the AffecTeaching module students will attend pre-recorded lectures by expert academics, study online material related to the module units and complete tests assignments based on each unit’s learning objectives. Participants who will choose to attend this module will have to complete on average 33 working hours divided as follows:

• 12 hours of online, asynchronous attendance of pre-recorded lectures, webinars, and videos
• 15 hours of individual study and preparation
• 6 hours of self and peer evaluation