College Teaching

ISSN: 8756-7555 (Print) 1930-8299 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vcol20

How Emotion Matters in Four Key Relationships in

Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Kathleen M. Quinlan

To cite this article: Kathleen M. Quinlan (2016): How Emotion Matters in Four Key
Relationships in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, College Teaching, DOI:
10.1080/87567555.2015.1088818

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 COLLEGE TEACHING
2016, VOL. 0, NO. 0, 1–11
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2015.1088818

How Emotion Matters in Four Key Relationships in Teaching and Learning in

Higher Education
Kathleen M. Quinlan
University of Oxford

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The role of emotions in learning and teaching has largely been neglected in educational literature, Emotion; higher education;
particularly in higher education. Yet there are signs of increased interest in emotions in recent learning; student
literature. This paper argues that emotions are a vital aspect of relationships. How we feel with and development; teaching
about others is central to the quality of those relationships. Thus, emotions matter in college
teaching and learning as an aspect of enriching social and relational experiences that support
student development. This paper discusses four key relationships in higher education: students with
subject matter; students with teachers; students with other students; and students with their
Downloaded by [University of Georgia] at 23:27 18 April 2016

developing selves. For each key relationship, key literature is referenced, and suggestions for
enhancing practice are offered.

Introduction
Through this paper, I hope to stimulate teachers’ reflec-
tion, discussion, and classroom research on the emo-
tional dimensions of teaching and learning through
consideration of four key educational relationships. Tra-
ditionally, the literature on teaching and learning in
higher education largely overlooks the role of emotions
in the educational process, and I hope to help redress
this imbalance. Historically, one of the suite of three tax-
onomies, now collectively called Bloom’s taxonomies,
(Krathwohl, Bloom, & Masia 1964) focused on educa-
tional objectives in the affective domain. However, the
affective domain has had much less impact and applica-
tion than the earlier taxonomy of the cognitive domain
(Bloom & Krathwohl 1956). The affective domain is de-
emphasized in the 2001 revision of the taxonomy
(Anderson & Krathwohl 2001).
Nonetheless, there has been a recent upsurge of inter-
est in emotion in education. For instance, a recent search
of the British Education Index on “higher education”
and “emotional experience” showed almost no records
before 2006. From 2006–10 there were 6 to 12 records
each year; in 2011–2, there were 33 and 34 papers pub-
lished each year, respectively. In the United States, con-
templative pedagogy is gaining momentum and interest,
highlighting the emotional dimensions of experiences in
higher education. However, while student and teacher
feelings are gaining increasing attention, emotions are
still often absent in mainstream texts (see Ambrose 2010
as an exception) and in programs that prepare academics
for teaching in higher education. Much of the new
research is under-theorized, and there are no larger orga-
nizing frameworks or reviews of the literature.
This paper is based on the reading of and reflection on
this small, but growing, body of literature on emotions in
teaching and learning in higher education, and on con-
versations I had on this theme with teachers from a vari-
ety of disciplines as part of a short residency as
Educator-in-Residence at the National University of Sin-
gapore in August 2014. This paper is one product of a
larger project that includes a literature review of different
theoretical stances on the role of emotions in higher edu-
cation and a set of concise case studies for use in educa-
tional (faculty) development programs (Quinlan,
forthcoming).
In my review of the literature (Quinlan 2014), I orga-
nize existing research around several different theoretical
traditions, which see emotions and their role in higher
education in quite different ways. For instance, much of
the literature takes psychological perspectives that view
emotions as internal to individuals, seeing emotions as
private and, often, in need of management or regulation
(e.g., Gross 2001; Gross & John 2003; Gross, Richards,
and John 2006; Op ’T Eynde et al. 2007; Bakracevic Vuk-
man, and Licardo 2010). Transformative learning theo-
ries (e.g., Taylor & Jarecke 2009; Dirkx 2008), while still

CONTACT Kathleen M. Quinlan Kathleen.quinlan@learning.ox.ac.uk Head of Educational Development, Oxford Learning Institute, University of Oxford,
Littlegate House, 16/17 St Ebbe’s St, Oxford, OX1 1PT, United Kingdom.
© 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
 2 K. M. QUINLAN
situating emotions as personal constructs, see the value
of an individual’s emotional disorientation as a catalyst
for changes in worldview or identity. In contrast, socio-
logical perspectives prompt us to see emotions as socio-
cultural phenomena that are historically constructed and
reproduced by schools, universities, and other social
institutions. Various sociologists, using terms such as
“affective structures” (Clegg 2013) or emotional rules
(Wetherell 2013), have discussed how organizations
attempt to control and benefit from the emotional labor
of their members. In an extensive body of work over
more than a decade, Michalinos Zembylas (e.g., 2012)
has used a number of different sociological lenses to help
frame emotions as relational rather than personal. The
notion that emotions exist and arise through relation-
ships underpins the framework put forward in this
paper.
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Drawing on Zembylas’s (2012) call for relational anal-
yses of emotions, I offer an organizing framework writ-
ten for college teachers to help us, as a community,
consider how and where emotion matters in teaching
and learning. Throughout, I use “we” to mean college
and university teachers and those who support them,
such as faculty developers. I choose the first person plu-
ral to create a more readable and friendly form, but also
for its emotional and social effect, consistent with the
focus of this paper. “We” binds us and reminds us that
we are all part of a community of teachers (Shulman
1993; Hutchings, Huber, & Ciccone 2011) that collec-
tively create and perpetuate particular discourses of
teaching and maintain and enforce certain standards,
expectations, and emotional rules (Wetherell 2013) for
its members. We are in relationship with this broader
higher education community, and its norms affect us
and our practice. The aim of this paper is to broaden our
discourse on teaching in higher education to take a more
holistic view of learning and teaching that acknowledges
the integration of feeling and thinking.
I begin with the assumption that emotion matters in
higher education because education is relational, and
emotions are central to relationships. Many theories of
learning, as well as the now-copious literature on student
engagement (e.g., Kuh et al. 2005; Zepke and Leach
2011), recognize that relationships are vital to the learn-
ing process in higher education. Furthermore, how we
feel with and about others are central to the quality of
our relationships. As teachers, we can consciously seek
to enrich the positive emotions associated with the key
relationships in higher education and strengthen the
relationships that are at the heart of student learning.
Given the social and relational nature of both emo-
tions (Parkinson 1996) and learning (Ambrose et al.
2010), I discuss how we can support positive emotions in
each of four main relationships that are vital to teaching
and learning in higher education. First, college students
engage with particular subject matters—the objects of
learning with which they are forming deeper relation-
ships. Second, students and teachers interact. Third, stu-
dents befriend and learn with other students. Finally,
students have a relationship with themselves through the
forging (or honing) of new identities during higher edu-
cation. In each of these four relationships, feelings are
elicited that influence both whether that relationship
expands or shrinks and students’ present and future
performance.
In general, positive activating emotions, such as
excitement and enjoyment, have a positive effect on per-
formance (Pekrun, Frenzel, Goetz, & Perry 2007). Stu-
dents’ enjoyment of studying is associated with using
deeper learning strategies (Trigwell, Ellis, & Han 2012).
Furthermore, students’ emotional experiences have a
longer-term effect on their sense of self-efficacy and
beliefs about themselves, how in control they feel about
an academic or social outcome, and how much they
value that situation. Students carry these past experiences
into subsequent experiences, which color how they
respond to new situations (Pekrun et al. 2007). For
example, if they have enjoyed biology labs in the past
and done well at them, they will be more likely to value
those experiences and to attribute their success to them-
selves, feeding both positive feelings and higher perfor-
mance. Ambrose and colleagues (2010) characterize
these concepts, which are common to most motivation
theories, as expectancies and values. Both expectancies
(expectations for fulfilment of a goal) and values (the
subjective importance of a goal) are affective in nature
and influence students’ motivation to learn.
Relationship with subject
Looking first at the relationship between students and
the discipline, idea, text, or problem being studied, it has
long been acknowledged that helping students see the
relevance of a subject helps them learn (e.g. Chickering
& Gamson 1987; Ambrose et al. 2010). When students
see the value of a subject or relate it to their own experi-
ences or goals, this connection increases motivation,
curiosity, and enthusiasm. Students may even become
passionate about a subject matter.
Anna Neumann (2009) highlighted the role of “pas-
sionate thought” in academia, particularly in the lives of
tenured professors in research universities. Generally,
professors are deeply committed to the focus of their
research, talking about powerful memories of early
engagements with their subjects and ongoing fascination
with their topic. They experience “passionate thought” as

peak moments of flow in their scholarship, which they
describe as exhilarating, obsessive, and exciting. These
emotions occur both in solitary scholarship and as
shared experiences with colleagues or students. A class is
exciting, Neumann (2009) found, when students and
teachers are both making new connections and discover-
ies about the subject matter. With research professors,
scholarly learning is an important moral imperative:
they see their teaching role as engaging students in the
extension, reformation, re-contextualization and repre-
sentation of particular subject matters (Neumann 2009).
Although all of our undergraduates won’t become as fas-
cinated with our subjects as we are and won’t go on to
build a life researching the discipline, we still have scope
to make our subjects more interesting.
Following Palmer (1998), Hobson and Morrison-
Saunders (2013) reframe college teaching relationships
as a “gathering around a subject matter,” which they
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argue “opens up an endlessly rich and engaging commu-
nity of learning for teacher and student alike and
reminds us that the fundamental reason for teaching
(both of teachers and students) is to engage with the
world through the subject studied” (Hobson & Morri-
son-Saunders 2013, p. 774).
We can create the “gathering space” for enthusiasm
and curiosity to emerge in a classroom community. First,
we can alter students’ relationships with the subject. Sim-
ply prompting students to talk about the ideas of our
field is an important first step. If we listen to ourselves
repeating the same things year in and year out, it
becomes stale. How can we expect students to get excited
if we ourselves are bored? But when students start talking
about our subjects, fresh perspectives and new ideas
emerge that enliven the experience for all. This experi-
ence may explain why learning-centered teaching is cor-
related with teachers’ positive emotions (Postareff &
Lindblom-Yl€anne 2011; Trigwell 2012).
Talking about a subject brings students into a rela-
tionship with that subject, making it come alive as a con-
versational “partner.” Even the way we talk about ideas
and their sources can help students to engage in those
relationships. Darwin, Marx, Freud, de Beauvoir and
Dickens were all real people who lived in particular con-
texts and had particular biographical and cultural con-
texts that led them to develop the ideas they did. They
were in conversation with people about those ideas,
responding to those who came before them, as well as
their contemporaries. If we acknowledge the source of
the ideas we are talking about as real people who thought
and wrote in response to real problems, we help students
appreciate that disciplines are comprised of communities
of people (scholars) interacting around key disciplinary
ideas. We can refer to these researchers in ways that
COLLEGE TEACHING 3
bring them into the classroom as people, not just names
in a book. Seeing the people behind the ideas helps stu-
dents to imagine talking to or being one of these
researchers in our field. By putting students into relation-
ship with the subject and its key authors and ideas, we
are inviting them to join this community of scholars and
sending the message that they, too, can become authors
of their own ideas.
We can also help students strengthen their relation-
ship with the subject and the scholarly community that
surrounds it by ensuring that the tasks we ask students
to engage in are authentic to the practice of our disci-
plines (Bruner 1960). For instance, much has been writ-
ten recently about the need for a change in the way we
teach science, including, for example a short piece in Sci-
ence (Handelsman et al. 2004) and a body of work con-
cerned with students’ views of the nature of science
(Feng Deng, Tsai, & Chai 2011). Science is often taught
as inert facts; the process by which those facts have been
discovered and verified is lost in introductory courses.
However, science is a process of inquiry that involves
asking questions, formulating hypotheses, designing
experiments, collecting data, and analyzing data to
address questions that matter. That process is what
excites scientists. If we want students to be excited, we
need to figure out ways to enable them to participate in
that inquiry process.
The same can be said of many other disciplines. Sam
Wineburg (2001, 2011), for example, has revolutionized
the teaching of history to secondary school students. He
and his colleagues in the Stanford History Education
Group, have developed the “Reading like a Historian”
curriculum, comprised of more than one hundred lesson
plans that involve students reading and interpreting pri-
mary source historical documents (http://sheg.stanford.
edu/rlh). In economics, an international project to
develop a new open-access introductory economics cur-
riculum (CORE ECON project) for higher education
integrates many of the same principles. That curriculum
is built around big questions and uses real-life empirical
examples from a variety of historical and cultural con-
texts to explore those questions (http://kcleconomics.
com/its-high-time-economics-students-got-a-better-cur
riculum-david-hope-core/).
Creating curricula and using teaching methods that
involve students in inquiry are both intellectually and
emotionally sound pedagogy. Such approaches help stu-
dents build relationships with the subject, and between
the subject and real world questions, concerns, and prob-
lems. Through these teaching approaches, students are
making connections, learning deeply, and experiencing
positive emotions that motivate them to continue and
deepen their learning.
 4 K. M. QUINLAN
Implications for practice
In summary, there are many ways we can enhance stu-
dents’ relationships with the subject, including the
following:
 Make the subject relevant to students’ lives; invite
connections between subject matter and students’
experiences.
 Share our own enthusiasm for the subject.
 Get students talking about “big” ideas of the field.
 Discuss researchers in the field as embodied people
who lived in particular times. Make them “real”
people with whom students can interact. Seek
diversity amongst researchers represented.
 Treat students as members of the disciplinary com-
munity, inviting and respecting their contribu-
tions alongside and in dialogue with key thinkers
in the field.
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 Involve students in authentic inquiry, which may
involve changing the setting, such as going into
the field, a lab, library, or the community.
 Use a variety of media. Images and videos can be
more emotionally engaging than text alone.
Relationships between students and teachers
A second major relationship in higher education in which
emotions play a key part is the relationship between
teachers and students. Research on instructional commu-
nication demonstrates that the way teachers communicate
affects students emotionally. When students perceive that
their teachers listen and show immediacy through behav-
iors that generate a sense of closeness, they experience the
class more positively, feel emotionally supported, and can
express their own emotions more authentically (Titsworth,
Quinlan, & Mazer 2010; Baker 2004). Teachers’ emotion-
ally related communication competence also correlates
with students experiencing more enjoyment, pride, and
hope (Titsworth et al 2013). When teachers lack immedi-
acy, are unclear, or demonstrate poor communication
competence, students experience heightened negative
emotional reactions, including shame, boredom, hopeless-
ness, anxiety, and anger (Mazer, McKenna-Buchanan,
Quinlan, & Titsworth 2014). Other researchers (Goetz
et al. 2012) have shown that these negative emotions are
associated with lower levels of achievement.
These studies reinforce that teaching is, first and fore-
most, a human interaction. As humans, we are thinking
and feeling creatures. We bring ourselves, including our
feelings, into the classroom. We can express disappoint-
ment when students miss class. We can let them see that
we swoon over a particularly beautiful piece of music or
get excited by the elegance of a proof. We can show
interest in students’ views. We can invite them to join us
in our enthusiasm. Part of creating the conditions for
passionate thought in a classroom is allowing ourselves
to share our own passion for the subject.
Students remember and value the emotionally posi-
tive aspects of effective teaching. An analysis of nomi-
nations for teaching awards put forward by graduates
of the University of Limerick in Ireland showed that
“students often refer to emotions, emotional states,
and emotionally satisfying experiences when provid-
ing descriptions of excellent teaching and generally
seem to associate their own and their teachers’ posi-
tive emotional states with good teaching and good
learning” (Moore & Kuol 2007, p. 87). Nominees
commented most frequently on teachers’ ability to
stimulate students’ interest or on teachers’ own
apparent interest in the subject. Intensely positive
feelings such as love, passion, and exhilaration were
frequently mentioned, as were enthusiasm and com-
mitment. Other positive emotions, such as enjoyment,
laughter, and fun were often referenced. Finally, stu-
dents nominated teachers for effectiveness awards
based on their compassion, empathy, or level of car-
ing for students (Moore & Kuol 2007). Thus, this
study highlights both the role of teachers’ own rela-
tionships with their subject (curiosity, passion, inter-
est) as well as their pastoral roles in nurturing
students (empathy, care).
Nonetheless, emotional investment and expression
may be seen as a risky strategy. Teachers often find
that their most distressing teaching experiences are
those in which they are criticized by students (Lahti-
nen 2008). Undoubtedly this is because of emotional
commitments to teaching; we are invested in our
work and feel hurt when students’ don’t appreciate
our efforts. Nearly 20 years ago, Parker Palmer
argued that it takes courage to teach authentically, in
ways that honor who we are and also honor who our
students are (Palmer 1998).
In fact, teachers often express hesitation about
emotional expressiveness in the classroom, particu-
larly in more emotionally reserved cultures (Zhang &
Zhu 2008). They perceive a set of tacit “emotional
rules” that govern how, when, and who is allowed to
express particular emotions. Sociologists have theo-
rized that there are emotional rules in various settings
and that the “emotion culture” guides—but doesn’t
completely determine—our behavior (Turner & Stets
2006; Zembylas 2002). Several studies of teachers’
emotions highlight the kinds of emotional rules that
make the expression of negative emotions particularly
difficult for teachers (Liljestrom, Roulston, & Demar-
rais 2007; Zhang & Zhu 2008). Power dynamics and

status differences between teachers and students are
also entangled in these rules (Turner & Stets, 2006).
As we begin to talk more about the emotional dimen-
sions of learning and teaching, we can identify and chal-
lenge those emotional rules when they no longer serve
our teaching, our students, and ourselves. We can also
provide support to teachers who experience distressing
moments or are fatigued from the sheer emotional labor
involved in student-centered teaching (Lahtinen 2008).
Relationships between students and teachers are
important in creating classroom atmospheres of trust
and cooperation. Opening ourselves up to students
requires us to be aware of our own emotions, to observe
and interpret students’ emotions, and to cope with stu-
dents’ feelings as they are expressed. All of these are
demanding and important—if rarely acknowledged—
aspects of teaching.
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Unfortunately, discussions of such matters often
revolve around personal preferences and opinions, rather
than being grounded in theory or evidence. We would
benefit from further conversation and research into
when it is appropriate (and educationally beneficial) to
disclose and express our emotions and when it is better
to hold them close.
Research on adult emotional regulation (Gross 2001)
offers insights into how we manage our own emotions in
student-centered classrooms. Like other psychological
theories of emotion, Gross favors an “appraisal model,”
which views individual emotions as arising from a per-
son’s cognitive appraisal of situations. In other words,
how we interpret a situation affects the emotion it stirs
in us and whether we choose to express or suppress that
emotional response. Adults choose or modify situations
as well as actively take different perspectives on the situa-
tions in the process of managing their emotions. All of
those actions are relevant to teachers’ work in facilitating
student learning (Kordts-Freudinger 2014). Thus,
Gross’s model provides a theoretical grounding for
teachers’ discussions about how, when, and why we
bring our own experiences and emotions into the class-
room. It is worth noting, though, that sociological and
cultural theories of emotions (e.g. Boler 1999; Zembylas
2002) also offer useful alternative perspectives. I offer an
analysis of a tense, racially charged classroom episode
through both a psychological and sociological lens else-
where (Quinlan 2015).
Implications for practice
Relationships with students can be enhanced by:
 listening, responding appropriately to the student as
a whole person, and behaving in ways that
COLLEGE TEACHING 5
generate a sense of closeness, such as learning and
using students’ names;
 seeking student feedback, such as through midterm
evaluations, shows that you care about the effect
of the teaching on them and that you want to
meet their needs;
 being clear and consistent in our communications
and expectations;
 holding high expectations for students and convey-
ing to students that you believe that each one can
live up to those expectations;
 being positive ourselves and demonstrating our
enthusiasm and commitment to students;
 attending to our nonverbal communication, such as
smiling, varying our tone of voice, gesturing, mov-
ing around the room, or even sitting during a dis-
cussion rather than standing;
 opening up as people, through relating relevant per-
sonal experiences, occasional self-deprecatory
humor, or expressing our feelings about the sub-
ject or what is happening in the class and inviting
students to do the same; and
 increasing our accessibility, recognizing that
approaching a teacher outside of class takes
courage.
Relationships with peers
A third major relationship in higher education is
amongst students themselves. Pascarella and Terenzini
(2005) note that peer relations are an important aspect
of students’ college experience, because students’ interac-
tions with peers mediate a number of key educational
outcomes including changes in values and attitudes.
Social constructivist perspectives on learning provide
reasons why student interactions are important to cogni-
tion and learning. These perspectives on learning have
provided the rationale for many collaborative learning
interventions (Barkley, Major, & Cross 2014). However,
emotional relationships provide another strong explana-
tion for the success of collaborative learning methods,
which has been highlighted in a recent review of litera-
ture on cooperative learning (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith
2014).
One of students’ greatest concerns in transitioning to
higher education is whether they will make friends and
“fit in” (Beard, Clegg, & Smith 2007; Christie et al. 2008).
In creating the conditions for students to thrive in higher
education, we must also attend to the opportunities stu-
dents have for forging meaningful friendships and build-
ing a sense of belonging in a new community (Strayhorn
2012). Many of our educational practices can be alienat-
ing (Martin 1985). In residential environments, we ask
 6 K. M. QUINLAN
students to move away from their families and home
communities, to challenge provincial or received ideas
from those communities, and we expect them to learn
new rules of discourse and to engage with new value
frameworks. Often we expect students to make these
changes in large anonymous classes, where students may
come to the same lecture halls several times a week for a
whole term and never actually meet anyone else in their
class.
Yet, a sense of belonging is a basic human drive (Mas-
low 1943). In fact, it is the strong need to belong within a
society that causes us to obey the unwritten emotional
rules of that society discussed in the previous section
(Ratner 2007). We reap social rewards when we behave
in socially acceptable ways and suffer shame, embarrass-
ment, and reprobation when we do not. As humans, we
are social creatures, and we suffer when we are isolated
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from others. Strong social networks are fundamental to
our health and well-being; humans have evolved to value
them accordingly (Ratner 2007). Students, particularly
those in their first year, need to build up a new social net-
work from scratch.
As educators, we can create environments that help
students to build these important peer relationships. We
can do so through living-learning environments that
offer opportunities for students to discuss what they are
learning informally with students from diverse back-
grounds who bring different perspectives to bear on key
questions. We can create learning communities within
our classrooms by dividing students into smaller groups
and giving them meaningful tasks that require them to
share their knowledge and learn from each other. These
work groups help students meet others and feel a sense
of belonging in the particular classes they are attending,
thereby reducing attrition (e.g. Popiolek, Fine, & Eilman
2013), particularly for vulnerable groups (Hotchkiss,
Moore, & Pitts 2005). Creating self-directed student
learning groups is particularly important in large classes,
when dwindling resources make it more difficult for uni-
versities to staff small breakout discussion groups, tutori-
als, or lab practicals. Much has been written on active
and cooperative learning strategies within the main-
stream teaching literature (see, for example, Barkley et al.
2014)). Therefore, I will not elaborate this section further
but simply conclude that such strategies can be thought
of and justified in both emotional and cognitive terms.
Part of their effectiveness lies in their capacity to
strengthen human relationships.
These educational interventions could benefit from
further research through theoretical lenses from sociol-
ogy. For instance, Turner and Stets (2006) outline several
different sociological theories of emotion that make par-
ticular predictions about emotional responses and
interactions under different conditions. These theories
could be applied to cooperative learning groups and may
offer explanations for typical emotional dysfunctions in
such learning groups and possible remedies. Further
research in this direction may lead to better understand-
ing of how to enhance small-group learning, particularly
student-led groups.
Implications for practice
Although we may think that students’ relationships with
peers is not our responsibility, learning is a social activ-
ity. We can provide opportunities for positive peer rela-
tionships to form through, for instance, the following
ideas:
 Using students’ names in class and encouraging stu-
dents to use each others’ names (perhaps using
name tents that students store and retrieve from a
file each day).
 Creating group assignments that require that stu-
dents work together in smaller groups, even if
those are self-directed or outside of class time.
 In large classes, forming students into “pods” or
“home groups” and giving these home groups
meaningful tasks to do in class together during
the term.
 Reminding students to briefly introduce themselves
at the start of collaborative learning activities.
 Designing learning activities that also have a compo-
nent of fun. Sharing laughter builds relationships.
Relationship with self
College students confront new ideas and ways of think-
ing as they interact with people from other backgrounds
and/or study unfamiliar ideas. Developmentally, young
adults change as they grapple with identity and intimacy
(Erikson 1959) and shift from relying on others to self-
authorship (Baxter Magolda 2009). Mature students are
at a different developmental stage, but they are still in a
transitional period in which existing views are challenged
and identities are reconstructed. The focus on critical
thinking in higher education prompts students to ques-
tion received wisdom, including value positions taught
by their families or practiced in their home communities
or workplaces. Thus, students must not only deconstruct
old meanings and ways of making meaning but recon-
struct a sense of purpose in their own life that integrates
expanded perspectives and worldviews (Parks 2000).
Parks (2000), focusing on spiritual development, pointed
out that developmental changes during the young adult
years often involve strong feelings. Young people who
have had former beliefs stripped away but have not yet

reconstructed a sense of self, faith, and purpose feel
“shipwrecked” and hopeless before moving into a new
sense of commitment that accepts ambiguities (Parks
2000). These developmental notions of commitment and
incorporating values into one’s life resonate with the
higher-order educational objectives in Bloom’s affective
domain (Krathwohl, Bloom, & Masia 1964).
The process by which these changes in identity and
worldview come about can be described as transforma-
tive learning (Illeris 2014; Mezirow 1981; Mezirow &
Taylor 2009). Mezirow, who first coined the term, origi-
nally characterized transformation as changes in a per-
son’s “meaning perspectives,” his or her typical frames of
reference for how the world works. Mezirow’s original
emphasis (1981) was largely cognitive and analytical, but
later theorists (Dirkx 2008; Taylor & Jarecke 2009) have
highlighted the importance of emotions in the transfor-
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mative learning process. Taylor and Jarecke (2009) show
how emotional disorientation serves as a catalyst for
transformative learning. Disorienting experiences desta-
bilize students enough for them to reconsider a situation,
a necessary step in changing their frames of reference or
sense of self. These theorists characterize learning as a
process of “see-feel-consider-change” rather than “ana-
lyze-think-change,” clearly privileging the role of emo-
tions in the learning process. Thus, how we feel about
something determines whether we will reconsider it and
make a substantial change. Illeris (2014) described the
associated teaching approach as “leading learners to the
edge….” (p. 11):
Transformative learning is often initiated when learners
come up against their limitations, go beyond the habit-
ual, experience the unaccustomed, meet, split or break
down, face dilemmas, feel insecure, or must make incal-
culable decisions. Many examples indicate that irregular
courses with obstacles, breaks, problems and challenges
encourage emotional intensity and innovation, and in
this way also promote transformative learning.” (Illeris
2014, p. 11)
It is important to note that transformative learning is
something more than just the gradual accumulation of
knowledge or even assimilating new knowledge or skills
into pre-existing frameworks. Rather, it involves chang-
ing as a person. As Illeris (2014) defined it, “the concept
of transformative learning comprises all learning that
implies change in the identity of the learner” (p. 40).
While students engage in a whole range of forms of
learning, many educators hope that a portion of their
university education will be transformative. Teaching
that presents opportunities for students to test their lim-
its is more likely to induce both emotional discomfort
and a changed relationship with themselves—or, put
another way, changes in identity. Thus, in creating the
COLLEGE TEACHING 7
conditions for transformative learning, we need to be
prepared for and accept the value of students’ emotional
discomfort as a natural part of reframing their relation-
ships with themselves and reconsidering their place in
the world.
Mezirow and Taylor (2009) argue that transformative
learning consists of three main ingredients: (1) students
have an experience (e.g. a project in the community; a
conversation with someone from a different background
in a residence hall; an encounter with a patient or a stu-
dent or a client); (2) students critically reflect on that
experience; and (3) students engage in dialogue with
others about it. Authenticity to self and in relationships
is important in the reflection and dialogue steps, and
diverse peer interactions are most effective in the dia-
logue process.
Service learning, in which students engage in commu-
nity service related to a course’s academic objectives, is
one way to provide firsthand experiences that will “lead
learners to the edge” (Illeris 2014, p. 11) Medical stu-
dents dealing with patients for the first time; geography
students interacting with native peoples; social work stu-
dents interacting with clients from different socio-eco-
nomic backgrounds; and study abroad excursions can all
be transformative. As teachers, we then need to balance
those challenges with support through reflection, dia-
logue, and the space and time to process those potentially
transformative experiences. There is a lively tradition of
research in transformative learning in adult education,
although there is less emphasis on this form of learning
in higher education. We may benefit from drawing on
this rich body of related (but often isolated) literature to
illuminate college and university teaching.
We may also benefit from connecting transformative
learning (Illeris 2014) with the recent movement toward
contemplative pedagogies (Zajonc 2013), insofar as both
bodies of literature are forms of experiential learning.
Contemplative pedagogies focus not only on students’
relationships with themselves but teachers’ own relation-
ships with themselves as human beings. Contemplative
pedagogies draw on spiritual traditions that emphasize
meditative practices as a way of improving attention,
emotional balance, awareness, insight and compassion.
Through contemplation and increased attentiveness,
people are able to enrich their experiences, thereby com-
ing to fuller understanding. Like Taylor and Jarecke’s
(2009) “see-feel-consider-change” representation of
learning, contemplative pedagogy up-ends traditional,
“third person” paradigms of knowing in higher educa-
tion (Kahane 2009; Britton et al 2013). Instead, contem-
plative pedagogy emphasizes a “first-person” approach
that invites participants to “observe our own present-
moment experience with a certain degree of
 8 K. M. QUINLAN
compassionate detachment. This compassionate self-
observation of our own bodily sensations and emotional
patterns requires an ability to let the usual storylines go
to begin to notice what is going on in us right now”
(Kahane 2009, p. 53). In short, contemplation offers a
process of inquiry that changes our relationships with
ourselves and reduces alienation from fellow beings.
Hobson and Morrison-Saunders (2013) write,
one of the ways that we have noticed the quality of atten-
tion extending in our teaching is when we include bodily
and emotional awareness. Listening for the teaching
moments with hearts and bodies, paying careful atten-
tion to the tingles of skin, the jolts of nerves, the catches
in throat, the visceral feelings in the belly… and the irre-
pressible urge to smile…has been a reliable guide for us
in our years of teaching. When we follow a question
with students, when we sit with a question in silence;
when we ask of each other what we do not know, then
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inner attention to bodily tuning is most intense. (Hob-
son and Morrison 2013, p. 781)
Kahane (2009) shows us how to use meditation, free-
writing and sacred reading (focusing on a paragraph of
text with a meditative approach) in philosophy classes.
Zajonc (2013) suggests other exercises such as open
awareness, deep listening and sustaining contradictions
(seeking to maintain, rather than resolve, contradic-
tions). A deeper relationship with oneself forms a foun-
dation to enable more holistic learning environments
and, in turn, the deepening of other relationships that
are vital to teaching and learning in higher education.
Implications for practice
Growth through education means providing opportuni-
ties for students to notice and reflect on themselves. We
can:
 provide opportunities for students to test their own
limits, to “go beyond the habitual, experience the
unaccustomed…face dilemmas, or … make incal-
culable decisions” (Illerus 2014, p. 11);
 break out of the typical class mold through field
trips, service learning, role plays, unusual schedul-
ing or surprises;
 invite reflection on how one feels (in one’s body and
heart) and personal perspectives on the material;
 make it clear that discomfort is often part of the
learning process and be willing to stay with it,
rather than seek to immediately resolve it;
 ask students real questions (ones we don’t already
know the answers to) about big ideas, key
thinkers, or educational experiences, and listen
openly;
 incorporate meditation, free writing, or “sacred read-
ing” (Kahane 2009) into one’s course;
 create an environment of trust and critical dialogue
amongst all members of the class community.
Conclusion and recommendations
In the current climate of marketization and focus on
measuring learning outcomes and gains of higher educa-
tion, discussions about intangibles such as emotions and
relationships are often sidelined. Most teachers are
understandably reluctant to demand particular feelings
as an assessed outcome of higher education or to man-
date a certain kind of formalized reflection. However,
hoping that students gain confidence, feel passionate
about a subject or an issue, develop sensitivities or appre-
ciation, or feel as if they belong to different communities
as a result of our classes remain worthy aspirations.
Affective aspirations represent an alternative view of the
value of higher education that needs to remain in our
discourse, even more so because such views are at risk in
the current milieu.
This paper offers a framework for our own reflection
on our practice, for discussions with colleagues, and for
our own action research by emphasizing, first, the rela-
tional nature of education and, second, highlighting four
key relationships. Although I have offered suggestions in
each section above for how we might create more emo-
tionally satisfying and productive relationships, I am
reluctant to be overly prescriptive, as there are as many
ways to enrich relationships as there are relationships.
What we choose to do will depend upon our own per-
sonal histories, our students, our subjects and the con-
texts within which we teach. That said, my hope is that
this article prompts readers to experiment with
approaches that push you just beyond your comfort zone
and to observe the emotional (and educational) impact.
First, we might ask ourselves how we feel about our
teaching and what makes us most engaged or interested
in teaching. In effect, we might look inward, perhaps try-
ing out contemplative practices as discussed in the sec-
tion on relationship with self. Not only are students’
relationships with themselves important, but our own
relationships with ourselves are important. If we are not
willing to be aware of and acknowledge our own feelings,
we will not be able to encourage students to explore
theirs or handle it when they do. Research suggests that
teachers’ capacity to manage their own emotions may be
vital to successful student-centered teaching (Kordts-
Freudinger (2014). Thus, focusing on our own feelings
related to teaching is a vital first step. Through introspec-
tion and reflection, we can identity what bothers or
upsets us, how we respond to those situations, and,

ultimately, how we might re-frame those troubling situa-
tions to open up other options (Gross 2001).
We can also begin to question the cultural norms and
assumptions that lead us to feel as we do. For example,
teachers are often unwilling to disclose personal experi-
ences or views, even if they are relevant to the topics
under discussion. When, though, might personal disclo-
sure help to build trust with a class? Or challenge a view
being taken in the class? Or simply grant permission for
students to also make connections between the subject
and their personal experience?
Through reflection, we might consider each of the key
relationships in turn, considering which we actively sup-
port and the barriers and facilitators to each—in our
own minds and in our contexts. How, for instance, do
we engage students’ enthusiasm for the subject? How do
we support peer-to-peer relationships? What is our rela-
Downloaded by [University of Georgia] at 23:27 18 April 2016
tionship with students? If we are neglecting a key rela-
tionship, why? What might be done to enhance it?
Second, we might come together with other teachers
to discuss each of the key relationships. Discussions
about relationships with subject might take place best
within specific disciplines. Historians, for instance, might
start by talking about what makes history interesting to
them and how they share their own passion for the sub-
ject with students. They might exchange ideas on how
they make history interesting and exciting to students,
how they involve students in historical practices and
insights that excite them, and exchange particular exam-
ples or cases. In terms of relationships with students or
amongst students, discussions of emotionally challenging
or simply emotionally charged teaching scenarios enable
us to step back from the heat of the moment to under-
stand classroom dynamics. In those reflective discus-
sions, we can, collectively, do the reframing that is vital
to considering alternative actions and responses, and
enable us to continue taking the risks that are inherent
in student-centered teaching (Palmer 1998). Through
thoughtful discussions in a community of teachers, we
can also challenge prevailing emotional rules that govern
our actions, as well as consider what broader changes in
the curriculum or policies need to take place.
Finally, we can do classroom research on student
emotions in our own classes. We can ask students when
they felt most engaged in a particular class, to identify
what aspects of our practice are generating student inter-
est. We could ask students questions like: In one word,
how would you describe how you feel about this class?
Why? About this subject? Why? What is one thing we
could do that would help you enjoy the class more?
What is one thing we could do to help you feel more
excited about and curious about this subject? Another
technique is to examine students’ critical incidents in
COLLEGE TEACHING 9
learning in a given term. You can ask them to reflect on
a critical moment or critical incident over the course of a
term that helped them to see the subject differently.
These kinds of inquiries would help translate the general
suggestions contained in this paper into local, specific,
concrete examples and evidence.
In sum, reflection, discussion and gathering input
from students through small-scale classroom research
are all ways that we can ensure that our discourses and
practices of teaching attend to emotional, as well as cog-
nitive, aspects of the educational experience.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the staff of the Centre for the Development of
Teaching and Learning at the National University of Singapore
for hosting me as the Educator-in-Residence at the National
University in Singapore in August 2014. The role of emotion
in teaching and learning in higher education was a key theme
for my residency, and the conversations with many faculty
members whom I met helped me shape the ideas for this paper.
I also thank three anonymous peer reviewers for their useful
suggestions.
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