Teaching students how to interpret animal emotions part 1: in the classroom and on placement

Identifying the patient's emotional state enables veterinary nurses to tailor care, provide better advice on animal training and behaviour problems, and stay safe during human–animal interactions. However, the ability to interpret animal emotions is not instinctive and must be learnt. This article refers to Herrington and Oliver's ‘authentic learning framework’, which may be used in the classroom and during clinical placements to structure teaching and learning. For example, classroom-based teaching could transmit appropriate knowledge (‘scaffolding’), demonstrate the interpretation process (provide ‘access to expert performance’ and ‘modelling’) and task students with identifying animal emotions in images and YouTube videos (‘authentic activities’). Within clinical placement, supervisors could activate their students' knowledge by using questioning, model their own process of identifying animal emotions (‘access to expert performance’), and set authentic learning activities such as an audit of animals' emotions. Within both contexts, reflection and discussion should be encouraged, coaching provided as necessary, and authentic assessment used to gauge student ability. Placement supervisors can build their formal knowledge of animal emotions by reviewing their students' learning materials, attending animal behaviour conferences or webinars, accessing reliable websites and reading academic journal articles. This would also count towards their annual continuing veterinary education requirements. Part 2 of this article will discuss putting into practice what has been learned.