How to Teach With Emoticons
They might seem like just a bunch of frills, but emoticons actually have many real-life applications in the classroom. From the sciences, to drama and English, to trades or almost any kind of learning, teachers are finding these little mood characters to be a helping hand.
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Instructions
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Use emoticons to demonstrate positive or negative outcomes. Many students in this day and age respond well to these visual cues: they're familiar and make learning more accessible. Many areas of teaching, including hands-on subjects like chemistry, can make use of emoticons to clearly tell students what to do and what NOT to do. Including emoticons in lab manuals, guidelines, or other teaching materials can be very effective.
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Use emoticons to talk about emotions/expressions in subjects like literature or drama. Although you want to avoid oversimplifying, a range of emoticons can be useful in those perennial discussions of Shakespeare, or in stage directions. They clearly set the mood of a character and can be a great reference.
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Use emoticons for a case study in marketing, new media, or mass psychology. Engage students in learning about how these simple little characters are used to demonstrate (and spread!) moods or emotions, and in persuasive text.
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Get students into a debate. Eliciting student views on subjects like the use of emoticons is part of the Socratic method, where students are strongly encouraged to do the mental work of preparing a "worldview" or persuasive view on a subject. Students will learn by shaping their own opinions and honing communication skills.
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Use emoticons for positive or negative reinforcement. Students who may be struggling to correctly follow a teacher may be really encouraged by a :) and on the flip side of this, students who are heedlessly disobeying instructions might take some notice of a :( or :> again, students respond to what they know, and unless there is a clear policy against the use of emoticons, teachers are free to include them in their resources for reinforcement of ideas.
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Tips & Warnings
According to educational experts, emoticons are particularly vital in online learning, where the student can't access the visual and vocal cues of an instructor. There are even deliberate plans to promote the use of emoticons to solve this "communication gap" online.
