Rebecca Palacios |
Logroño, (EFE).- “Active” educational methodologies that promote positive emotions get students “more attentive and involved” in the classroom, who achieve “longer-lasting learning,” the researcher and teacher at the International University has assured EFE from La Rioja (UNIR) Carmen Romero.
This professor of the Degree in Early Childhood Education Teacher at UNIR has defended the use of active methodologies, such as project-based learning, to promote emotional competence and learning in children.
“Emotions occupy a fundamental aspect in our lives and, consequently, in the integral development of the child. As part of their development, minors must learn to identify and express emotions”, this expert stressed.
In the Early Childhood Education stage, teachers design activities to recognize and express their own emotions, he specified, such as the symbolization of emotions through colors.
colors and emotions
Associations between colors and emotions can vary based on culture and personal experiences, Romero has acknowledged, but there are some general beliefs in the way colors are perceived and how they can influence mood.
Thus, red is associated with energy, passion and power, but it can also evoke intense emotions, such as love, anger or excitement. Blue usually transmits calm, tranquility and serenity: and is associated with trust, stability and security.
Yellow evokes joy, happiness and optimism; can stimulate creativity and mental activity; while orange reflects enthusiasm, vitality and creativity. On the other hand, green recalls hope, anguish and envy; the black fear and sobriety; and white, peace and calm.
For Romero, “color is something close to the child”, so that “associating a specific color with a state of mind or emotion will help them develop greater emotional self-awareness and express their emotions more effectively.”
In this way, color becomes “a communication tool”, even when the little ones do not have their verbal skills developed.
In the infant stage, this association can be worked on with group activities, role-playing games and class discussions, seeing emotions and associating them with a color, reading stories and exploring their personal ones.
stimulate learning
A color associated with positive emotions causes stimulation that can help capture attention and arouse students’ interest in the learning content.
Some subjects, such as mathematics and science, generate rejection in students from an early age, which is associated with negative emotions (fear, nervousness, insecurity or frustration), generated when they face learning tasks, explained this expert.
If this mechanism is perpetuated, negative attitudes appear, such as rejection or avoidance of the task, which have their origin in inappropriate methods, according to Romero, principal investigator of a UNIR group on active methodologies in teacher training.
For this reason, he has defended the use of active methodologies, which are characterized by student participation and teamwork, so that they connect the contents, mathematics or natural sciences, with their daily lives, using creativity and autonomy.
These methodologies include project-based learning, in which the student starts from a guiding question, the answer to which implies a research process with activities; whereas, in cooperative learning, students work in small groups to solve problems, each one has a role and everyone contributes.