Recent advances in neuroscience are highlighting connections between emotion, social functioning, and decision making that have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the role of affect in education. In particular, the neurobiological evidence suggests that the aspects of cognition that we recruit most heavily in schools, namely learning, attention, memory, decision making, and social functioning, are both profoundly affected by and subsumed within the processes of emotion; we call these aspects emotional thought. Moreover, the evidence from brain-damaged patients suggests the hypothesis that emotion-related processes are required for skills and knowledge to be transferred from the structured school environment to real-world decision making because they provide an emotional rudder to guide judgment and action. Taken together, the evidence we present sketches an account of the neurobiological underpinnings of morality, creativity, and culture, all topics of critical importance to education. Our hope is that a better understanding of the neurobiological relationships between these constructs will provide a new basis for innovation in the design of learning environments.

In its original version, control-value theory describes and explains achievement emotions. More recently, the theory has been expanded to also explain epistemic, social, and existential emotions. In this article, I outline the development of the theory, from preliminary work in the 1980s to early versions of the theory and the recent generalized control-value theory. I provide summaries of the theory’s evidence-based propositions on antecedents, outcomes, and regulation of emotions, including the fundamentally important role of control and value appraisals across different types of human emotions that are relevant to education (and beyond). The theory includes descriptive taxonomies of emotions as well as propositions explaining (a) the influence of individual factors, social environments, and socio-cultural contexts on emotions; (b) the effects of emotions on learning, performance, and health; (c) reciprocal causation linking emotions, outcomes, and antecedents; (d) ways to regulate emotions; and (e) strategies for intervention. Subsequently, I outline the relevance of the theory for educational practice, including individual and large-scale assessments of emotions; students’, teachers’, and parents’ understanding of emotions; and change of educational practices. In conclusion, I discuss strengths of the theory, open questions, and future directions.

The present study was designed to empirically test the assumption that teachers and students systematically and mutually mimic each other's facial expressions of joy during instruction. We used a multi-camera setup to capture university instructors' and their students' facial expressions during class, submitted those video recordings to automated facial expression coding, and applied cross-recurrence quantification analysis to quantify the amount of emotional mimicry within each instructor–student dyad. We found support for the validity of the facial expression coding in that post-session self-reported joy was positively correlated with the amount of time where instructors and students facially expressed joy.

Let’s put an old misunderstanding to rest: “Engagement” is not a synonym for “entertainment.”

To care deeply about whether students are actively involved in class and interested in the content does not mean you advocate coddling students or treating the college classroom as a free-for-all fun zone. In fact, anyone who conflates engagement and entertainment is not only mistaken but also quite in conflict with the psychology and neuroscience underlying how human beings learn, which demonstrates that learning requires the motivated application of attention and working memory.

“When educators fail to appreciate the importance of students’ emotions, they fail to appreciate a critical force in students’ learning,” wrote the neuroscientists Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and Antonio Damasio in the book Emotions, Learning, and the Brain. “One could argue, in fact, that they fail to appreciate the very reason that students learn at all.”

Engagement is a necessary first step for learning — which is one reason why efforts to enliven your classroom can’t be dismissed as empty entertainment. But beyond that, deep engagement in a course actually requires hard work. “Engagement means setting up challenges for students that are meaningful beyond getting a grade,” argues the writer and speaker John Warner, “challenges which encourage risk without unduly punishing failure so they may experience the pleasure of resiliency and be enthused about trying again.”

Online courses are increasing access to college for students who have been traditionally left out of higher education. However, minoritized students are less likely to succeed online when compared to their White and Asian peers. As the student population becomes more diverse, colleges and universities have an opportunity to improve this problem by preparing faculty to design and facilitate inclusive online learning experiences that more effectively support the needs of all learners. This paper presents a model for humanized online teaching using a theoretical framework influenced by Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT), social presence, validation theory, and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Humanized online teaching ensures the non-cognitive components of learning are addressed through instructor-student relationships and community, allowing connection and empathy to drive engagement and rigor. Six humanizing strategies with real teaching examples are discussed, in addition to goals for meaningful professional development to support the adoption of humanized online teaching.