Putting in more: emotional work in adopting online tools in teaching and learning practices

Abstract

This paper explores the emotional journey associated with changing one's teaching and learning practices and how this constitutes emotional work. The paper analyses the emotions evident in the data from a small-scale phenomenological study of lecturers who are using technological tools in their teaching, learning and assessment practices in one higher education institution. The discussion illuminates the nature and scale of the emotional work experienced by some lecturers when changing their teaching and learning practices to incorporate technology. It indicates that this challenge is so extreme that even the most committed advocates of online teaching practices may consider giving up and reverting to traditional ways of teaching. The paper identifies strategies that lecturers use to manage the anxieties they experience in their adoption of online tools.

Keywords:

• emotional work
• technology
• innovation
• feelings

Acknowledgment

I wish to extend my thanks to Professor Lyn Tett for her encouragement and help with this paper and to the reviewers for their insightful comments.