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Studies in science and mathematics education have shown that teachers’ responsiveness to students’ ideas, feelings, and experiences is critical for promoting epistemic agency, disciplinary engagement, and equity. Such responsiveness is particularly important for students whose cultures, backgrounds, and funds of knowledge have been traditionally marginalized in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classrooms. Yet, what allows teachers to enact responsive teaching is less clear. We argue that epistemic empathy—the capacity for tuning into and appreciating learners’ intellectual and emotional experiences in constructing, communicating, and critiquing knowledge—is an essential driver of teacher responsiveness. In this work, we examine how epistemic empathy can serve to support teachers’ attention and responsiveness to students’ sensemaking experiences in the classroom and discuss emergent tensions that arise in this work. We end with implications for research and for teacher education to cultivate epistemic empathy as a resource for responsive teaching and a target for teacher learning.
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“He got a glimpse of the joys of understanding” – The role of epistemic empathy in teacher learning
Abstract Background. Efforts to promote reform-based instruction have overlooked the import of affect in teacher learning. Drawing on prior work, I argue that teachers’ affective experiences in the discipline are integral to their learning how to teach the discipline. Moreover, I suggest that both affective and epistemological aspects of teachers’ experiences can serve to cultivate their epistemic empathy—the capacity for tuning into and valuing someone’s intellectual and emotional experience within an epistemic activity— in ways that support student-centered instruction. Methods. Using a case study approach, I examine the learning journey of one preservice teacher, Keith, who after having expressed strong skepticism about responsive teaching, came to value and take up responsive teaching in his instruction. Findings. The analysis identifies epistemological and affective dynamics in Keith’s interactions with students and in his relationship with science that fostered his epistemic empathy. By easing his worries about arriving at correct answers, Keith’s epistemic empathy shifted his attention toward supporting students’ sensemaking and nurturing their relationships with the discipline. Contributions. These findings highlights teachers’ affective experiences in the discipline as integral to their learning how to teach; they also call attention to epistemic empathy as an important aspect of and target for teacher learning.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1844453
- PAR ID:
- 10257281
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of the Learning Sciences
- ISSN:
- 1050-8406
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 33
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2021.1936534
