Cognition, Emotion and Learning: Facilitating Students’ Learning Cognitively and Affectively to Prepare them for the Rapid Changing 21st Century

Oon Seng Tan – National Institute of Education, oonseng.tan@nie.edu.sg
Chua Bee Leng – National Institute of Education, beeleng.chua@nie.edu.sg
IRN Start Date: May 1, 2015

With the rapid explosion and proliferation of knowledge in the twenty-first century, it has impacted on the way we learn with knowledge becoming more transitory and the difficulty to predict what will be useful for the future or what to select to learn. Indeed, the ability to cope with change, learning as much as possible, is consequently the generic capacity needed for the twenty-first century.
Recognizing that cognitive factors can be considered key elements to the individual’s successful adaption, particularly in a technological and rapidly changing society, it is acknowledged that in any classroom to prepare our students for the twenty-first century, the quality of interaction between the teacher and students have to be addressed with the implication that teachers need to take the role of facilitators rather than content disseminators (Tan, Seng, & Pou 2003). Likewise, positive emotions are deemed indispensable, if not paramount in a learning environment and parents, teachers and learners collectively acknowledged the importance of learner’s emotional welfare to promote effective learning (Markopoulou, 2015).
Therefore, in this fast changing landscape of the 21st century, it is critical for researchers and educators to take on an interdisciplinary approach as we embark collaboratively to explore mediated interventions that would guide us in our development of human capital and facilitate students’ learning cognitively and affectively.