Material Matters: Increasing Emotional Engagement in Learning

In: Journal of management education: the official publication of the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society, Band 38, Heft 4, S. 586-607

Abstract

Organizational scholars and neuroscientists suggest that when people are more emotionally engaged, they learn more effectively. Clinical art therapists suggest that the experience as well as the expression of emotions can be enabled or constrained by different materials. So then, what materials can be employed by management educators to achieve optimal levels of emotional engagement? In this essay, we begin to answer this question by discussing the ubiquitous material aspects of management learning by exploring the complex relationships involving materials, emotions, and learning, and by presenting a set of practical ideas about how management educators can become more adept at designing and facilitating learning processes that effectively engage students' emotions through the use of materials such as clay, LEGO bricks, and paper.