Le psychologue du développement renforce la confiance des apprenants par le défi
How do children navigate emotional responses to learning?
Interviewé:
Interview par :
Moriah Sokolowski researches how the developing mind learns, with a focus on mathematical learning et variabilité d'apprentissageAnnie Brookman-Byrne en apprend davantage.
Annie Brookman-Byrne : Quelles questions posez-vous dans vos recherches ?
Moriah Sokolowski: Children come to the classroom with different experiences, opportunities, and cultural backgrounds that shape how they engage with learning. Why do some children find learning relatively easy while others struggle? How do emotions such as fear and anxiety influence mathematics learning? And why do some people select and succeed in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines and occupations?
Understanding how children learn mathematics can provide broader insight into learning, persistence, and disengagement more generally. Math is a particularly useful model for learning because it is cumulative, meaning that early difficulties can compound over time, and because it is one of the first areas where many children encounter sustained cognitive challenge and begin developing emotional responses to learning, including confidence, persistence, fear, and avoidance.
There are also important practical implications. Mathematical skills are increasingly essential for everyday life and many occupations, yet children around the world appear to be struggling with math plus que jamais. Understanding how experiences, culture, and emotions shape learning can help us create better educational environments and supports for children with diverse learning profiles.
“Understanding how children learn mathematics can provide broader insight into learning, persistence, and disengagement more generally.”
Annie : What drew you to research differences in how children learn?
Moriah: I have always been fascinated by development and individual differences. I often wonder why people differ in how they think and respond to challenge.
As a student, I loved my developmental psychology courses, but what ultimately drew me into this field was my undergraduate thesis project. I used an app iPad to teach numbers and early math concepts to preschool-aged children. It was remarkable to watch these children go from not understanding numbers to learning how to count, map symbols onto quantities, and solve simple arithmetic problems.
What fascinated me most was how differently each child approached learning. Some learned quickly, while others needed more repetition. Children differed in their attention, confidence, emotional responses, motivation, and learning strategies. Watching those differences emerge in real time made me deeply interested in learning variability and the cognitive and emotional factors that shape learning.
Annie : Comment vos recherches aideront-elles les enfants ?
Moriah: The world is changing rapidly, including the academic and occupational landscape that children will eventually enter. There is increasing uncertainty about what future careers will look like and which skills will be most important.
At the same time, children’s brains are developing within environments that differ dramatically from those humans evolved in. We have ancient stress-response and attentional systems that evolved to help us survive physical threats and pay attention in relatively stable environments. Today, those same systems are being activated by constant stimulation, academic pressures, social comparison, test performance, and learning-related stress. As a result, many children are navigating environments that place increasing demands on attention, emotion regulation, and learning.
I aim to better understand how biology, experience, and environment interact to shape learning and emotional development, and influence children’s ability to adapt and thrive. By uncovering the cognitive, emotional, and environmental factors that support or interfere with learning, this work can help us create better educational supports for children with diverse learning profiles.
Annie : Has working in this field changed your own enseignement?
Moriah: It has profoundly shaped how I teach and think about learning. I teach mandatory science courses to students completing Bachelor of Arts degrees, and many students enter my classroom carrying significant fear of science, math, tests, and failure. Studying learning, anxiety, and emotional responses to challenge has led me to reflect on where these fears come from, the pressures students face as emerging adults, and how their learning systems developed within a rapidly changing world.
My research has also shaped how I support students who are navigating these challenges. One response would be to lower expectations, but I do not believe reducing expectations is the answer to reducing anxiety. Resilience is built by learning how to work through challenge successfully. As a result, a core principle that guides my teaching is ‘building confidence through challenge.’ I intentionally pair high expectations with strong supports, including scaffolded assignments, practice assessments, frequent feedback, and evidence-based strategies for learning and stress management. I also dedicate class time to discussing emotions, resilience, and learning itself.
Ultimately, I want to help students succeed academically, but also develop confidence, resilience, curiosity, and a stronger belief in their ability to succeed in challenging situations.
“Resilience is built by learning how to work through challenge avec succès."
Annie : Quelles sont vos prochaines idées ?
Moriah: I am especially excited about exploring visual imagery, which is the vividness and richness of our ‘mind’s eye.’ People differ greatly in their visual imagery. Some can vividly picture scenes in their minds, while others have very limited imagery or no conscious visual imagery du tout.
I recently co-launched a collaborative interdisciplinary project examining how differences in internal mental experiences relate to real-world outcomes, including selection into and success within STEM disciplines, and resilience or vulnerability to trauma. Traditionally, many predictors of educational, occupational, and mental health outcomes are strongly shaped by early adversity and opportunity. I am interested in whether characteristics like visual imagery may provide an early marker that is less dependent on opportunity structures and may help explain why individuals differ in how they learn, adapt, and respond to challenges.
We believe certain imagery profiles may shape how children experience and interact with the world, potentially influencing both learning and emotional resilience. We are also exploring whether some of these processes are seen across species by studying related phenomena in non-human animals, including rodents and fruit flies.
What excites me most is the possibility that a broader interdisciplinary perspective may help us better understand how children’s internal ways of thinking shape how they learn, adapt, and build resilience across development.
Interviewé:
Interview par :
Notes
Moriah Sokolowski est professeure adjointe de psychologie à l'Université métropolitaine de Toronto et chercheuse associée à l'Institut de recherche Rotman, où elle a auparavant bénéficié d'une bourse postdoctorale Banting. Elle dirige le laboratoire NeuroIDEA, où elle combine méthodes comportementales et neuro-imagerie pour comprendre la variabilité de l'apprentissage et le développement cérébral. Elle a obtenu sa maîtrise et son doctorat à l'Université Western, où elle a reçu la Médaille d'or du Gouverneur général pour sa thèse. Elle a publié plus de 30 articles évalués par des pairs et a présenté plus de 40 communications dans des contextes universitaires, communautaires et industriels. Parmi ses distinctions, on compte le prix Étoile montante de l'APS et la bourse de recherche Jacobs-CIFAR 2026-2028.
Moriah’s site and the NeuroImaging Development and Educational Attainment (NeuroIDEA) lab’s site.