I've done more exploration of Nick Shackleford Jones' theory of Affective Context Theory after uncovering an earlier blog post from a couple of years ago. This one, Towards a Working Theory of learning: The Affective Context Model provided support for my research as I plan out the ever ambiguous Windows 7 course.

My highlights from this article include Nick's decision to leave teaching psychology because he found himself writing "Piaget believed learning should be exploratory" onto a board while students copied it down. After I read the name, Piaget, I immediately began googling him to see if there were any current blogs about him.

Jean Claude Piaget is responsible for my lifelong love of learning. It was in college when I first heard about him watching his children learn from their play. Learning about him testing his theory of object permanence ignited my quest to live in the land of learning. Thank you, Jean!

Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980)

Other highlights on Affective Context from Nick S-J includes these points:

Context rather than content determines learning efficiency.
Learning is the process by which people attach emotional sense to information.
Sometimes it really matters to people to learn, other times someone else makes it matter.

Shackleford-Jones' Affective Context Model defines the difference between 'pull' - type and 'push' - type learning. In Pull - type learning, the content format doesn't matter. It already means something important to the learner because the learner is desperate to figure something out. In Push - type learning, the importance is unclear. Learning is usually presented at the time when the importance is not imminent to the learner.

So, how does this affective context affect my current development plan for the Windows 7 course? I put together these questions after I asked myself: What are the reasons why this audience would care?

Back to development of the Windows 7 course!