This week in class we've been discussing characteristics of adult distance learners. In our class discussion forum I shared thoughts on the notion that adults are more internally motivated than externally. I shared how I have seen internal and external motivations intertwined, sometimes almost symbiotically so, in the adults in my online undergraduate composition courses.
I don't meant to repeat this, but I am finding that some additional reading I am doing is resonating with this whole set of thoughts. In "Facilitating Transformative Learning: Engaging Emotions in an Online Context" (2009), authors Dirkx and Smith look at transformative learning in distance education and examine the role of emotions in the process.
When I read the Dirkx and Smith piece (a book chapter--see reference below), I saw that when I talked about the intertwining of motivations, I had not explicitly linked motivation to emotion. Now it's clear to me that this can be the case--external motivators can be linked to the internal motivation of emotional states that a person may want to achieve or avoid.
What's especially interesting here is that I don't know that we usually think of distance education as a setting for emotion or an emotional life. Or at least I don't think I have thought of it that way--what about you?
And yet when I take the time to actually think about the learner and what kind of emotional response a learner may have to distance education, and I think about my own experience, I realize that I am constantly navigating the emotional lives of (some of) my students. They often share amazing, emotional, quite personal things with me and with the class. So for at least my students, there is absolutely an emotional aspect of the distance education experience they are living (since they are often coming back to school as older adults or after negative academic experiences in the past).
What do you think about emotions and the emotional life in distance education?
Reference (again sorry--cannot keep the APA formatting here):
Dirkx, J. & Smith, R. (2009). Facilitating transformative learning: Engaging emotions in an online context. In J. Mezirow & E. Taylor, Eds., Transformative learning in practice (pp. 57-66). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.
I think you have hit upon something here. Many DE students succeed to the extent that loved ones support them, or to the extent that they, the students, temporarily forsake familial duties. Either could be very emotional. Also, DE, or even education generally, seems to entail aspiration. The emotional flip side of aspiration is that a student, in the present, is inadequate or insufficient. -JD
ReplyDeleteDierdre,
ReplyDeleteYou always have additional information for us. I feel so enriched by visiting your posts.
If I remember correctly, you are interested in Mezirow's work, right? Mezirow's psychocritical approach does consider emotions; bringing emotions to our DE discussion is very timely.
Internal motivations and emotions and external motivations in a dance - I like how you have put it in the forum. To me they are connected, too. Who leads in the dance, though?
Dierdre,
ReplyDeleteMy last 2 posts are coming from my personal blog in Bulgarian. Sorry I forgot to mention this earlier. Adelina
JD,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment on emotions. You're right that it could be easy for students to see themselves as inadequate. I see so much aspiration in my students--though they may privately have not-so-nice thoughts about their current state, publically they are focused only on the positive. I remind them that taking action is better than no action, and that being in school now and working toward whatever their goals are is better than doing nothing. And that's not just "nice instructor" baloney--I really mean it.
I mean, where and how would we all like to see ourselves in 5 or 10 years? Do we want to look back at this time now and think that we had chances but we never did anything about it? Probably not.
Dierdre
Adelina--you ask a good question about "who leads" in the dance between internal and external motivations. I imagine that the answer is different for each person. And even within one person, the answer may vary from time to time.
ReplyDeletePersonally, some days I am more externally motivated than others. :)
Dierdre
J.D., Dierdre, Adeline,
ReplyDeleteYou're inspired me. Thanks for that. Yes, you help keep me going ... doing ... providing feedback. Why?
I believe in living (organic) transactional teaching-learning energies. Online I "feel" a living presence, a give and take of teaching-learning conversations. From my perspective, I think living, positive, energetic teaching-learning dialogue can help us motivate one another.
What do you think?
Linda
(Adelina, I dream of a return trip to Bulgaria. I was there (Sofia) in 2004 and loved it.)