Empathy| Being The Learner Facing The Challenge

At our Hui in Kuaotunu we engaged in a variety of activities in order to understand the challenge we have identified. One of the initial activities we were involve in was to take the empathy angle and be in our learner's shoes. Think like the learner facing the challenge. We all carried this activity out with a buddy and through it got to see and feel what the different learners might feel when facing a challenge. 

My buddy was Sarah from Pt England School in Auckland and we both discussed our challenges we have identified. We all completed a poster activity where we placed the learner in the middle and responded to the four different statements and questions we had on the poster. 

A photo of my poster- 

My Buddy Sarah's Poster-

This poster activity made us think about the learners in front of us rather than our own judgements and experiences. It made us realise the importance of being empathetic and keeping our learners at the forefront. 

My buddy Sarah and I put ourselves in our learner's shoes and through role play activity in-acted  like our learner facing the challenge we have identified. Questions our learners would ask, things going on in their head, feelings surpassing them during class. 

I was really fascinated doing this activity and started to think about the role of empathy in design thinking process to solve a problem. So, I got surfing the net and reading about empathy in solving problems and found this piece of reading by Dr Keith Robinson very interesting. 

Here is the link to the article I read.