Workshop on Social and Emotional Intelligence in Learning Environments

Abstract

It has been long recognised in education that teaching and learning is a highly social and emotional activity. Students’ cognitive progress depends on their psychological predispositions such as their interest, confidence, sense of progress and achievement as well as on social interactions with their teachers and peers who provide them (or not) with both cognitive and emotional support. Until recently the ability to recognise students’ socio-affective needs constituted exclusively the realm of human tutors’ social competence. However, in recent years and with the development of more sophisticated computer-aided learning environments, the need for those environments to take into account the student’s affective states and traits and to place them within the context of the social activity of learning has become an important issue in the domain of building intelligent and effective learning environments. More recently, the notion of emotional intelligence has attracted increasing attention as one of tutors’ pre-requisites for improving students’ learning.