Simona Kontrimienė

The Interplay Between Critical Thinking, Emotional Touchpoints and Personalised Learning: Experiences from Two Erasmus+ Projects

The Interplay Between Critical Thinking, Emotional Touchpoints and Personalised Learning: Experiences from Two Erasmus+ Projects

Simona Kontrimienė

Institute of Foreign Languages, Vilnius University, Lithuania

Abstract

Critical thinking (CT) is, among other things, a rational, sceptical and unbiased analysis or evaluation of factual evidence. Yet given the cognitive, emotional and behavioural levels of integration of information, cognitive performance must be married to emotional responses as well as behavioural expressions. The present paper explores our experiences from two Erasmus+ projects, KA220-SCH Women's Legacy: Our Cultural Heritage to Equity and KA203 Innovative Teacher Education Through Personalised Learning (INTERPEARL). In the first project, critical thinking was combined with the method of emotional touchpoints in literature analysis, and in the second project, CT was applied in the personalisation of two teacher training programmes at Vilnius University.

Our findings suggest that the interplay between critical thinking and emotional touchpoints in literature analysis promotes higher order thinking via emotionally charged reasoning and organisation. Such an interplay develops one’s ability to reflect over texts and see a broader picture vis-à-vis the ultimate meaning and alternative directions in life. In regard to personalisation as a novel approach to teacher education, which the INTERPEARL project aimed to develop, CT as the ability to identify central issues, interpret facts, apply generalisations, etc. aligns with the frameworks of social constructivism, reflective practice and mediated learning, the pillars personalised learning rests upon.

Keywords: Critical thinking, ERASMUS+, cognitive performance, emotional touchpoints, personalised learning.

Biography

Dr Simona Kontrimienė serves as Head of the Department of Research in Languages for Specific Purposes at the Institute of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Philology, Vilnius University. She is also an Associate Professor of English for Specific Purposes (Psychology) and Quantitative Research Methods at Vilnius University. Kontrimienė’s research interests cover methods in social science research, spirituality and spirituality-related constructs, teacher education, personalised learning, psycholinguistics, parenting, romantic love, etc. Email: .