Emotional Intelligence Part 2

Have just re-visited some videos on emotional intelligence:

The Art of Managing Emotions

You would find some of my previous posts on Emotional Intelligence: here and here.

Whilst emotional intelligence is critical to success in managing emotions in personal life, managing customer service and organisation leadership, I think we need more empirical evidence and researches to support those claims relating to Emotional Intelligence and its impact on individuals and organisation.

Refer to this presentation by Peter Salovey on Emotional Intelligence.

Some papers on Emotional Intelligence (EI): here on EI and here on the measurement of EI.

Advertisement

Cultural Awareness and Differences in MOOCs

This may be of interest for reference to the discourse on cultural awareness and differences in MOOCs
1. Cooperman said the latest round of MOOC enthusiasm has prompted concern because of the top-down nature of the material being offered on MOOCs by professors from elite Western universities.

2. But, in China, Gunawardena found students don’t necessarily openly argue with each other based on points of view. They build knowledge based on collaboration. What effect will this have on the uptake of Western-made courseware?

There are political and cultural reasons behind the use or non-use of MOOCs in developing countries – such as those in China and Africa. Students coming from another cultural background such as China would have different needs, and there could be significant language barriers since their mother tongue is Chinese (Mandarin). Besides, the pedagogy adopted in mainstream China tends to follow the Confucius system – with a strong didactic teaching approach.

Here is a video that shows some differences in views between American and Chinese students (reflective of the western and eastern cultures to some extent).

Relating to cultural awareness, there has been some research studies done, and even a cultural intelligence has been identified. I have attended a cultural awareness training course but found that most of the researches done might have been over-generalized and “stereo-typed”. As Debbie said the learning outcome may be about cultural awareness rather than learning of the subject matter, and some people coming from another culture may easily be misunderstood, misinterpreted or incorrectly judged due to the differences in their gestures, way of connection and communication, and their customs or cultures. Similarly, MOOCs coming from a western culture may have a strong “flavor” of western style of living and cultural values, especially in areas like literature, politics, arts and dancing, and this could be significantly different from those of the eastern cultures. Conflicts in values or cultures may not be obvious, but could hinder the education and learning process. The shadows of neo-liberalism, imposed or biased values of certain beliefs, imperialism and the associated dominance with powers and authority, might be perceived by participants coming from a different culture to the west.
Here is a paper on cultural intelligence (CI).
Some more research papers here, here and here.

It may be interesting for us to have a Multicultural Awareness and Intelligence MOOCs.

How about the design and development of a MOOC on Multicultural Awareness and Intelligence?  Who are the experts in this area?

Who would be interested in such a MOOC?

Thanks for visit too.

John

Emotional Intelligence and Innovating Learning

How important is emotional intelligence (EI) in teaching and learning?  Emotional Intelligence will be introduced into trainee teacher education, and that teachers would be tested on their EI in their course of study.  Do we need emotional intelligence tests for teachers?

I think emotional intelligence is important to our daily life.  Not only educators would require certain forms of “training” and development in EI, it seems that learners would need them too.  How and what sort of “training” and development programs on Emotional Intelligence would be helpful and supportive for educators and professors?

Our society seems to focus a lot on the training and education of new teachers.  How would teachers learn best in Emotional Intelligence.  Here are my posts: (1), (2), (3) on emotional intelligence.

How to foster Emotional Intelligence? (Innovating Learning – Creative Classroom CCR P17)

Emotional intelligence should be valued in CCR as it is a key factor for creative learning. It can be fostered through a variety of activities that aim to help learners recognise and manage emotions, form positive relationships, and successfully handle the demands of growing up in a complex and constantly changing world.

There are now courses offered on Emotional Intelligence including this one on Coursera.

I think the best way to learn about Emotional Intelligence would be action learning, where EI is used for personal reflection, together with research and practice at work (in creative classroom), where educators (professors, leaders etc.) and learners could learn from each others.  Have we forgotten that every one of us is a learner, including the directors, CEO, managers, professors, teachers and learners within institutions, and in social and learning networks?

Training the new teachers on EI alone would not improve the overall “QUALITY” of education and learning, just like quality cannot be designed by the Quality Manager only.  I think EI needs to be more thoroughly researched, theorized, practiced, and reflected, before it is “forced” through human’s minds.  EI itself is not a panacea to all problems of education.  Educators and learners should realize that EI could help them in overcoming obstacles and building resilience in their learning journey.  However, we shouldn’t be “testing” EI in order to ensure compliance with regulations, in order to screen the “good” teacher from “unsuitable” teacher.  Rather, we should think of encouraging teachers to develop their creative thinking and learning capacity, critical thinking capability, and problem solving ability, with their EI so as to support and improve the education system – by leading, coaching and mentoring their leaders, supporters, peers and learners.

In summary, we could develop EI in our course of learning. EI should be viewed as a strategic affordance that would help leaders, educators and learners in recognising and managing emotions, forming positive relationships, overcoming obstacles and building resilience in their learning journey, resulting in their abilities in solving problems and making decisions.  We should be encouraging all educators (professors, teachers, administrators) and learners to co-develop and co-learn with their colleagues and learners, in order to improve overall QUALITY of education and learning.