Thank you. I have read the gears.pdf. I'd be interested to see some of your research if you have any links?
I can clarify that I don't doubt emotion is integral to cognition and I think its commonly understood the role of a good teacher is to help a student find a sense of wonder, fascination and excitement about a topic.
What I do doubt is that adding an unrelated emotional context like a gamified incentive or a movie plot around the explanation of an abstract topic will fundamentally improve understanding. I think its superficial and can even dilute the relationship one needs to build with the topic itself.
To interpret the author more generously, it would be a worthy goal for learning tools to build the right sort of emotional connections like the old St. Exupery quote:
> If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea
I don't have any of my work related to this topic online yet, but I will post something, someday, maybe.
I agree that game-ification and tangential devices will not directly improve understanding of a topic, if at all.
I grew up playing many edutainment games which were nothing but boring classroom textbooks, with animated characters and sound effects. Strangely though, the fond memories of some of those characters has, I like to think, gave me positive associations with the actual subject matter, and has led to study of it later in life. More importantly, as you say, it could have diluted my interest or caused a negative association just as well.
I can clarify that I don't doubt emotion is integral to cognition and I think its commonly understood the role of a good teacher is to help a student find a sense of wonder, fascination and excitement about a topic.
What I do doubt is that adding an unrelated emotional context like a gamified incentive or a movie plot around the explanation of an abstract topic will fundamentally improve understanding. I think its superficial and can even dilute the relationship one needs to build with the topic itself.
To interpret the author more generously, it would be a worthy goal for learning tools to build the right sort of emotional connections like the old St. Exupery quote:
> If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea