Capturing Hearts and Minds with Empathy in Digital Learning
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At this year's Learning Technologies Summer Forum, Brightwave's Director of Design Caroline Freeman presented this session on digital learning design to a packed house. To meet emerging new priorities – from engagement and collaboration to productivity and retention – there is a growing demand for learning solutions that deliver authentic and memorable emotional experiences with a significant and lasting effect on changing behaviour: Your learners can’t do good if they don’t feel good about what they’re doing.
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Capturing Hearts and Minds with Empathy in Digital Learning
- 1. Capturing hearts and minds: Empathy and engagement in digital learning design
- 2. About me Caroline Freeman Director of Design @FreemanCaro
- 3. What we’re going to look at: o Latest research on emotions and learning o How this impacts design of digital learning experiences o An example of emotionally driven learning design
- 4. They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Carl W. Buehner
- 5. The science
- 6. For many years scientists saw emotions and cognition operating as two separate systems
- 7. Neurobiological research increasingly shows us emotion and cognition are interdependent
- 8. • Neuroscience combined with study of personality, emotion and mood • New understanding of complex interface between biology, learning and culture Affective neuroscience
- 9. Research shows people who have damage to their frontal cortex and can no longer feel emotion, also find it impossible to make decisions
- 10. Our ability to learn has been central to our success as a species
- 11. The brain’s primary function is to keep us alive and well by regulating our social and biological life. The way we think and learn is dictated by our physical being and our desire to survive. Your brain isn’t a computer
- 12. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang Even in academic subjects that are traditionally considered unemotional...deep understanding depends on making emotional connections between concepts
- 13. Admiration
- 14. Curiosity
- 15. Hippocampus is more responsive to novel stimuli than familiar stimuli. Novelty attracts attention and creates new memories Artwork copyright © 2000 Ann L. Myers
- 16. Anxiety interferes with working memory Anxiety
- 17. Emotional processes help learners apply knowledge in real situations. Emotions help learners to recognize and call up relevant knowledge. .
- 18. Implications for the design of digital learning experiences
- 20. Learner choice creates emotional investment in the outcome
- 21. Create opportunities to solve open-ended problems
- 22. Make it relevant: the brain only pays attention to things we care about.
- 23. Visual aesthetics matter – they work like a digital body-language • Increase credibility of information • Evoke positive emotion • Increase motivation • Perceived ease of use
- 24. Use humour where appropriate • Reduces anxiety and creates a positive emotional environment • We retain information better when it is delivered with humour • The surprise within humour can increase attention
- 25. Create blended solutions with opportunities for socialising the learning
- 26. Principles of emotionally-driven design • Understand and respect your audience • Make it relevant to them • Tell stories and use humour • Create aesthetically pleasurable interactions • Create opportunities to socialise the learning
- 27. An example of emotionally- driven design
- 41. A life of their own
- 42. Come to stand 15 brightwavegroup.com
Editor's Notes
- Welcome everyone, really appreciate you coming along to the lunchtime slot
- We’re going to start with some theory, looking at the latest research on the relationship between emotions and learning and then moving into How this impacts the way we design digital learning experiences – I’m not going to be talking about the wider culture in organisations just the specifics of the digital experience Practical examples
- This is a famous quote, you may have seen it before. I want to tell you a story about it. When I was preparing my slides I had this quote in mind, but I it fits the subject of what we’re discussing today, but I was convinced it was by Maya Angelou. But I double checked the source and I was surpised to see it was this chap, who I’d never heard of before, although it is widely mis attributed to Maya Angelo Carl was an official in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Now I think its interesting that so many people think its Maya Angelou, it feels like something she would say, but I think the extent to the misquote also says that more people want to identify with Maya Angelou rather than a little known Mormon preacher and it is perefct example of the role empathy, identification and emotions play in the way we see the world and the way we remember the world
- So, I’m going t o start with a couple of bits of neuroscience just to frame my argument before looking at the implications for the way we design digital learning
- For many years scientists saw the mind and the brain as divided into distinct areas – emotion and cognition. There was even a general belief that emotions interfered with higher order rational thinking and learning. So the idea was that if you wanted to learn, you needed to park the emotions at the door to clear your brain
- But there’s been a transformation in our understanding over the last twenty years. Increasingly research is showing us just how interdependant the two processes are . In terms of learning its showing us that far from interfering with it, emotion is critical .
- Much of this research has been done in a discipline called Affective neuroscience and to avoid any confusion I’ve included a definition on this slide. This field has grown because the reeasrcher have been able to use the amazing developments in brain imaging to explore the biology behind emotions, feelings, how we process social interactions and how this relates to learning. I’m going to reference the work of a two Affective neuroscientists during this talk
- The first name I’ve going to give you is Antonio Damasio, who wrote this book called Descartes Error in 1995 which as the title suggest is questioning the Mind/Body dualism. The book walks you through a series of case studies of people with brain injuries in order to make an argument about how our minds work. One of his case studies is about a man called Elliott. Elliot was a successful businessman, model father and husband. Part of his frontal lobe was damaged during an operation to remove a tumour After his operation, life fell apart. His marriage collapsed, as did ever new business he started. He seemed incapable of making any deicisons any more. Making an appointment took 30 minutes, choosing where to eat lunch took all afternoon. His intellect wasn’t damaged but he appeared to have no emotions any more Damasio found Elliott an “uninvolved spectator” in his own life, I never saw a tinge of emotion in my many hours of conversation with him: no sadness, no impatience, no frustration.” Elliott’s lack of emotion paralyzed his decision-making. , these patients’ social behavior was compromised, making them oblivious to the consequences of their actions, insensitive to others’ emotions, and unable to learn from their mistakes. In some instances, these patients violated social convention and even ethical rules, failing to show embarrassment when it was due and failing to provide appropriate sympathetic support to those who expected it and had received it in the past.
- The key to Damasio’s position is that our ability to learn has been central to our success as a species, because it allowed us to evolve and adapt more quickly than other species, so that as a not particularly phycially strong ape we could populate the whole world and live in very different envirnments. In the history of our species, emotion was always part of learning as it was related to our survival. Learning is an adpative process in which memory leads to chnages in capability or behaviour
- So essentially Your brain isnt a computer. It doesn’t learn like a computer. It has developed within a living body and the way it thinks and feels and learns is in relation to that body and the desire to survive We do not learn in the way a computer learns, its not just a rexcording of data or facts, but a set of associations. Damasio isnt saying that our emotions completely rule our thinking, nor that rational thought does not exist. But he is saying that the original purpose for which our brains evolved was to manage our physiology and to optimise our survival http://nautil.us/issue/56/perspective/antonio-damasio-tells-us-why-pain-is-necessary
- This is the second affective neuroscientist that I want to recommend to you. Immordino Yang who is based at the University of Southern California “Emotions, Learning, and the Brain.” “Even in academic subjects that are traditionally considered unemotional, such as physics, engineering or math, deep understanding depends on making emotional connections between concepts.”
- admiration inspires purposeful learning But where does the neurobiology come in? Among the most poignant and basic insights from affective neuroscience, the neuroscience of emotion, is that the emotions that regulate our sociocultural and intellectual lives appear to have co-opted the same neural systems that manage our survival in the basic biological sense. Just as poets and artists have suspected for millennia, we feel social relationships and appreciate intellectual achievements using the same brain systems that sense and regulate our guts and viscera, adjust our blood chemistry and hormones, and conjure our awareness and consciousness. No wonder our creations, reputations, cultural ideals and personal relationships, including those in educational contexts, have such amazing psychological power.
- So moving onto to some other emotions which Before anyone says anything - this is supposed to be a curious cat not a dead one. Curiosty is critical to motivation and attention A curious state is one in which you explore and notice things its playful, and follow what you’ve noticed… and try to play it out… and question yourself about whether or not you fully understand and appreciate it… Then, come back around where you were before and re-examine what you thought you already knew, potentially with a new understanding of something else that might be related or a new connection.
- The hippocampus is involved in memory formation.
- I think we’ve all experienced this, if only that blankness that can happen in the middle of an important meeting when you’re feeling anxious. Anxiety creates a state of coginitve overload. This is why successful face to face instructors try to create an open, positive atmosphere in a classroom. – the more anxious the person is the less effective is their working memory. We can’t always control the situation within which learners take online learning, but we need to design our online experiences to reduce anxiety.
- To go back to the story about Antonio Damasio’s patient Elliott that I related earlier. Emotional processes are key in being able to call up the relelvant knowledge about previous experience in situations and in being able to apply those in the real world What the video playing brain finds compelling from is the intrinsic motivation from the dopamine-reward system that is extremely powerful in motivating our brains to do things that have been associated with the release of dopamine. Boosted levels of dopamine in this intrinsic gratification state result in the experiences of pleasure, reduced stress, increased motivation, and perseverance. Two of the most powerful activators of release of dopamine from the dopamine reward system are in response to feedback that the mammal has made an accurate prediction (choice/answer) or has achieved a challenge
- How do we take this understanding and apply it in a digital realm? How could digital learning environments be designed more effectively if we were to consider digital learning as happening through a dynamic interaction between the person and the computer?”
- The more the human-computer interaction is like an authentic social interaction—in which goals are transparent and each party has a role in shaping the exchange—the more satisfied people are likely to be with the design of the technology.
- Theres a huge amount of research that shows that when learners perceive they have control over the context and pace of their learning they perfrom better and believe they can be successful and they invest more effort in the task If you let people figure things out for themselves they have a relaese of dopamine which stenghtens and consolidates memories
- Now this is a difficult one for much digital learning, where problems are reduced to a yes/no black white answer. They don’t allow students to establish the emotional connections that we know are important for cognitive learning and decision-making. It’s often overcome in face to face by project – based work and group work and role plays where you can make mistakes safely. Digital leanring should be empowering learners to find out for themselves, giving them a safe place to master skills through exercises and simulations.
- The brain does not waste energy thinking about things that don’t matter to us. This is the reason why learners can pay attention and stay focused when the subjects or topics discussed are personally relevant to them. One of the first questions I always ask when we’re deisgning a leanring experience for a client is about the learners – what’s in it for them? What is this change going to do to their lives,
- Most of the research I’ve been discussing relates to experiments done in the F2F realm and there’s a pretty fair assumption that as our brains stay the same way these same they operate in the digital realm too. But visual aesthetics is one area where there is distinct research on how people respond when they are interacting with the digital world generally and digital learning specifically. I like to think of it as the body language. When we talking to another person, it isnt just their words that matter, we make all sorts of judgements on their integrity and intent based on reading their body language. If we go back to the earlier slide where I said it was important to see the interaction between learner and online as a form of relationship. But when we’ve taken the real body out of the experience – how do we judge the credibility of the messages? It seems that the design and aesthetics have a profound impact on how people relate to an online experience and ultimately assign value to it
- Positive non-aggressive humour has been shown to improve learning outcomes in a classroom setting because it reduces anxiety, increase self motivation. There is evidence that we recall infromation better when it delivered with humour Increase attention and interest - surprise can increase attention I think there is an additonal reason why humour helps and its to do with mutual respect. Used carefully as can be very personal. I’m going to show you an example later which involves humour in storytelling, but clearly it doesn’t work for every subject and its very tricky to get right in a global context
- Humans are social beings we learn socially and the social context is hugely important. This slide overs a huge area I cant cover here, I’ve not tlaked about culture or the wider context within the workplace. Both of which are abslutely critical of course. But I wanted to put this in here because even if you have little power to affect the wider context of your learners you can make your digital experiences more powerful by socialising the leanring, even in small ways, you might not have the capacity to make it whole blend, then making it a talking point through a campaign approach
- This project is part of a blend for Crossrail, the digital component builds on what the audience will have encountered in the faceto face Their performance is assessed monthly by mystery shoppers and they found that people were performing well areas such as availability and visibility but not so well on scenarios and knowledge-based areas – especially when giving customers directions. I’m going to take you through
- If you want to check this out , go round to our stand to have a better look
- An animated character speaks to you – this is Karim who is trying to get to Heathrow as he wants to go to an Elvis Convention in Las Vegas. The animation is created through simple motion capture so it feels quite human, which makes it easier to feel empathy for the character. I’m not going to do my Elvis impression here, but you can hear it in the course
- You need to help karim with his journey.
- I’m just showing you one question here but each scenario has a series of questions and you get points depending on your answer, importantly there are a range of answer, not just binary right or wrong
- Once you’ve answered the questions Karim takes your advice and you see the implications for his journey, so there is a branching ending
- AT the end of each scenario, you get a mini results screen The criteria for each of the customer service scenarios have been grouped into five categories to help learners fully understand the rationale behind them You get performance-specific feedback to celebrate success and clarify where learners would have lost points in a real life 'mystery shopper' surveyny customer service situation
- Each story has four possible endings. This is Ruby who wants to get to Wood Green to pick up her friend Dee and go to a Zumba class
- If you help her get her train, Ruby has a great time with Dee and effectively deals with local Lothario Dennis
- If she misses her train her friend Dee has a very different experience at the class. The building – simple resue
- Heres another view of the map further into the course, you can see my total score in the corner
- The proof what I’ve been talking about today – character jumped out of the course and into real life Alongside the face to face sessions and the digital learning, Crossrail have created life sized models of the characters, which are going to be installed in the stations on the Elizabeth line.
- And even more than that these characters have taken on a life of their opwn
- Come to stand 15 Follow me on twitter @FreemanCaro
- LORD MAYOR’S APPEAL SAMARITANS Emotional and affecting: subtle and sophisticated
- Very first screen sets the tone – straight into the story cycling images from the drama in the background.
- We knew people had anxiety and negative emotions about mental health / reaching out to ask if someone was OK so we needed strong emotions to counter these - engagement, empathy, sympathy, urgency, confidence. Drama was key to the initial engagement. We did work with all the key learning points but ultimately we focused on creating impact and a good story. The drama was backed up by very honest and emotional real life stories that would resonate with our target audience – people like them! – together with informative experts to foreground the learning. We wanted the look and feel to be aspirational but unobtrusive – the whole package needed to look classy but the focus needed to remain on the people and the stories. People are free to explore in any way they wanted to – but an order is suggested and supported by the design.
- VIDEO LED! Strong underpinning structure but unobtrusive – feel it rather then in your face Asked interviewees questions and then edited carefully (and sometimes ruthlessly!)
- It was very important to make the learning warm and aspirational – these people and behaviours need to be a club the learner wants to join!
- Focus mainly on video so the play button was very important and very natural! Very few standard elearning screens – wanted to make it as easy for people to engage as possible and to avoid breaking the flow of their emotions.
- Referenced web interfaces in navigation – very simple but aim was to make it very intuitive and that has proved to be the case But there are nice, clever touches… This is the menu if you haven’t watched the full drama
- And this is the menu if you have – you then have the option to replay scenes that support the learning points in each topic.
- The launch – PICTURED: Samaritans CEO Ruth Sutherland and Lord Mayor of London Charles Bowman At the Wellbeing in the City launch
- The pilot – results
- Questions defined for each screen – but no scripted responses
- It isn’t a problem piece or standard digital learning.
- SHOW MENU FOR TOPIC STRUCTURE TOPIC 2 [DON’T BE PUT OFF]
- TOPIC 5 [LOOKING AFTER YOURSELF] WANTED TO MAKE IT WARM AND ASPIRATIONAL – IT HAS TO BE A CLUB THE LEARNER WANTS TO JOIN!
- TOPIC 4 [THINGS TO SAY AND DO] MENU – RETURN TO DRAMA – PLAY TO END SO MENU SLIDES OUT SHOW REPLAY CLIP FOR TOPIC 1
- Clever context sensitive menu – to influence behaviour
- The launch – PICTURED: Samaritans CEO Ruth Sutherland and Lord Mayor of London Charles Bowman At the Wellbeing in the City launch Less is more What the learning isn’t is as important as what it is.
- The pilot – results
- You don’t have to work in the city to access the resource Rob to paste link into chat box
- How long did these courses take to make? How much were they? What tools were they made in?
- For my next performance - come and see us at the Learning Technologies Summer Forum on the 12th of June– I’ll be presenting a session at 1.00pm in Theatre 4 which continues and develops some of the threads and themes of this webinar on Empathy and engagement in digital learning design