I found this Aligning the Quantum Perspective of Learning to Instructional Design of great interests.
I still need to spend more time in thinking and reflecting through the details of this paper.
I have been exploring some of the topics discussed there, including emotional intelligence (and here), creative learning and learning styles.
Good to explore these areas in future research.
Emotional Intelligence: What is it? Why is it so important? What are the implications?
I enjoyed reading this Emotional Intelligence and Business Success available here. Thanks to efrosyni77 on Twitter for the link.
I found the results useful:
“The results of this study indicate that companies should place greater emphasis on developing the attributes of emotionality (capacity for relationship skills, empathy, emotional perception and expression) and self-control (capacity for controlling emotions, urges, and managing stress) when hiring new managers or promoting persons to higher positions of leadership in the organization.”
This also reflects the importance of developing Emotional Intelligence among educators and learners, and the feeling, perceptions and emotions whilst learning in social networks.
How does emotional intelligence relate to the divided brain? Is emotional intelligence still a myth in neuroscience? Would emotional intelligence require both sides of the brain to function well?
Not sure if these are of interests to our fellow MOOC Changers.
Would emotional intelligence lead people to become smarter, wiser? May be, in accordance to the research findings. But again, there are still many assumptions here, when the definition of what Emotional Intelligence is is still emerging at this digital age. How does emotional intelligence impact on educational leadership?
The sociable brain (Daniel Goleman in his book Social Intelligence): Neuroscience has discovered that our brain’s very design makes it sociable, inexorably drawn into an intimate brain-to-brain linkup whenever we engage with another person. That neural bridge lets us affect the brain-and so the body-of everyone we interact with, just as they do us.
Even our most routine encounters act as regulators in the brain, priming our emotions, some desirable, others not. The more strongly connected we are with someone emotionally, the greater the mutual force.
Does this explain why networkers are having strong or weak ties in social networks, where emotions could play a part in its formation, development and sustainability? What would be your basis of your weak ties/connections? Ideas or information sharing? Emotional sharing? Socialising?
In search of answers to the above questions, I explored this Bar-on Model of Emotional Social Intelligence . It provides some important insights into emotional and social intelligence.
emotional-social intelligence is a cross section of interrelated emotional and social competencies, skills and facilitators that determine how effectively we understand and express ourselves, understand others and relate with them, and cope with daily demands.
I would also rate this article as one of the best in emotional and social intelligence that I have read, as the research was extensive, and findings based on strong evidences.
Ref to p7 of 28:
More specifically, the Bar-On model reveals that women are more aware of emotions, demonstrate more empathy, relate better interpersonally and are more socially responsible than men. On the other hand, men appear to have better self-regard, are more self-reliant, cope better with stress, are more flexible, solve problems better, and are more optimistic than women. Similar gender patterns have been observed in almost every other population sample that has been examined with the EQ-i. Men’s deficiencies in interpersonal skills, when compared with women, could explain why psychopathy is diagnosed much more frequently in men than in women; and significantly lower stress tolerance amongst women may explain why women suffer more from anxiety-related disturbances than men (American Psychiatric Association, 1994).
The above findings sound well when I reflect on my observations in social networks, though I think more researches need to be done to substantiate the claims, in order to avoid any stereotyping.
Would gender difference affect the way how people use PLENK and connect with others? This could be important to understand, and if the findings of the research are right, then this may imply that more women are able to connect with others than men in social networks due to their superior skills in empathy and emotional awareness, whereas men may be able to cope better with stress, are more flexible, solve problems better, and are more optimistic than women.
This led me to explore further…..
In this Social intelligence, innovation, and enhanced brain size in primates by Simon M. Reader and Kevin N. Laland
Individuals capable of inventing new solutions to ecological challenges, or exploiting the discoveries and inventions of others, may have had a selective advantage over less able conspecifics, which generated selection for those brain regions that facilitate complex technical and social behavior. An alternative account is that primates are making opportunistic use of information processing capabilities afforded by a large executive brain that has evolved for some other reason to cope with challenges in new flexible ways. However, as these two hypotheses are not mutually exclusive (3), our findings support the view that social learning and innovation may have been important processes behind the evolution of large brains in primates.
To the extent that innovation is a measure of asocial learning, the correlation between social learning and innovation frequencies suggests that asocial and social learning have evolved together. This pattern suggests that social and asocial learning may be based on the same processes (50), which conflicts with the widely held view that social learning requires distinct psychological abilities from asocial learning (70). However, we cannot rule out the possibility that social and asocial learning are separate, domain-specific capacities (14, 15) that have undergone correlated evolution.
If the findings of the research are right, then innovation (as a measure of asocial learning) based on the use of PLENK and social learning might have evolved together, confirming that social learning and innovation is part of the evolution in past decade. Could we separate the social and asocial learning? That remains a myth.
This emotional and social intelligence is just so interesting for me to explore.
John
Postscript: Just read Heli’s Designing for commitment in online communities Great insights from Heli.
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