A critical aspect of human development is attending to one’s abilities to recognize emotions, manage thoughts and behaviors, and empathize with others. An emotional response does not preclude rational thinking; emotions are part of the human experience. Effective learning environments develop learners’ intrinsic abilities to regulate their own emotions and choose how to move forward in service of their learning. While many individuals develop regulatory skills and practices on their own, either by trial and error or by observing successful adults, many others can benefit from more explicit supports.

Unfortunately, some learning environments do not address these skills and practices explicitly, leaving them as part of the “implicit” curriculum that is often inaccessible to many. Those educators and settings that develop emotional capacity explicitly will be most successful in applying the UDL principles through modeling and prompting in a variety of methods. As in other kinds of learning, individual differences are more likely than uniformity. A successful approach requires providing sufficient options to support variability among learners. While it is imperative for learners to develop coping strategies, the design of the learning environment should not require learners to cope with inequitable conditions.

How might we design learning environments that support and extend emotional capacity while honoring variability among learners?