Social Emotional Intelligence

Developing Empathy in an Effort to Facilitate Effective Group Work

Within the Classroom: An Inclusive Education Inquiry
What we often refer to as empathy is a catch-all term for three distinct processes:

Emotional sharing - which occurs when we experience feelings of distress as a result of

observing distress in another individual.

Empathic concern - which is the motivation to care for individuals who are vulnerable or
distressed.

Perspective-taking - the ability to consciously put oneself in the mind of another individual
and imagine what that person is thinking or feeling.
Teaching empathy:

#1. Provide children with the support they need to develop strong self-regulation skills.

Breathing, meditation, yoga

Mindfulness, kindness practices
Zones of regulation
Classroom areas for calm
Personal reminders (eg. bracelet)
Tools fabric, silly puddy, ball, lip balm, etc
Teaching empathy:

#2. Take everyday opportunities to model, and induce, sympathetic feelings for other
people and things.

Make connections with stories in school

Read newspaper articles
Build bridges with other staff in the school
Tell personal stories and encourages students to do the same
Ask questions about feelings throughout the day
Share how things make you feel throughout the day
Teaching empathy:

#3. Help students discover what they have in common with other people

Pole to pole activity.

My friends who activity
Yes/no activity
Focusing on difference as a good & common thing we are all different and
can celebrate those differences.
Kindness pals
Story books
Teaching empathy:

#4. Foster cognitive empathy through literature and role-playing.

Having affective empathy isn't enough.

To be good helpers and teammates, we also need cognitive empathy -- the ability to
take another person's perspective, and imagine what actions might make that person
feel better. The process is more dispassionate and cerebral, and less stressful.

Story books/ news stories - What do the characters think, believe, want, or feel? And how do
we know it? When we actively discuss these questions, kids may learn a lot about the way other
peoples minds work.
Readers theatre
Role play - goggles & gloves, for example, to simulate old age.

http://www.starrspangledplanner.com/using-read-alouds-to-build-community/
https://www.weareteachers.com/15-must-have-picture-books-for-teaching-social-emotional-skills/
Teaching empathy:

#5. Foster cognitive empathy through compassion training.

Peace of Mind is an innovative program for Early Childhood through Fifth Grade that
integrates mindfulness practice with lessons on conflict resolution and kindness and
empathy.

MindUP has 15 lessons that teach activities around topics such as gratitude, mindfulness
and perspective taking.
Teaching empathy:

#6. Help young children improve their face-reading skills

It's hard to show empathy if you can't read faces well. These difficulties can cause social
problems.

Face flash cards (happy, sad, fear, anger, disgust, surprise)

Games facial mimicry, explaining the emotion, matchmaking, improvisational

story telling
Group work can be an effective method to motivate students, encourage active
learning, and develop key critical-thinking, communication, and decision-making skills. All
competencies in our new curriculum.

Without careful planning, progression, and facilitation, group work can frustrate students
and teachers and feel like a waste of time.

How to teach students to work in groups:

1. Warm up activities that require students to work together. (eg. line up by birthday)
2. Discuss different ways of learning and contributing to the class.
3. Scaffold easy partner and group discussion questions to encourage comfort in talking
with classmates.
4. Give clear roles in partners and then groups. Every student has something to
contribute.
5. Create a real reason for the work to be done in a group. (something that would be
difficult to tackle alone, something with more than one clear solution etc)
6. Ensure the skills of the group members compliment each other and together they are
capable of completing the task.
7. Assess group work (formative-quick quizzes, exit ticket rubric, check ins)
A personal reflection:

The first lesson I taught in my practicum classroom last October was a math lesson. It was designed as a
game with cards in groups of 3 or 4. I had met the class the previous week and had developed the
lesson to fit their needs and level and had tried it out in our math methods class to see if it could be
successful. At the time I didnt think the lesson was overly ambitious, but talking to my sponsor teacher
and supervisor afterwards, they were quite nervous about how it would go. I was well prepared, had
thought of the groupings beforehand, had all materials, knew the sequence of the lesson and was
excited for the students to give it a try.
What I hadnt taken into consideration was the lack of group work that the students had done until then.
Some groups worked together well, some struggled, one did not function well at all.
It turns out that through the year (I was placed in the same class for the whole year) the students got
more comfortable with group work, more able to be successful, but there were a few students who just
could not function in a group. No matter who they were with, something happened to make that group
dysfunctional. It made me work hard to find solutions.
The question became, is it worth it to encourage these few students to work together, or should I allow
them to work independently? One problem was that while they might be strong in math, their reading
and writing skills were not strong enough to do the work independently.
My sponsor teacher spent a lot of time building his students self awareness and gave each student the
tools to self regulate. His one classroom rule was respect. Despite each student understanding this, these
few students just could not act on it in a group work setting. They could reflect back later on what they
could have done differently, but in the moment they would not make the right choices.
I am hoping that in the future, a systematic approach to teaching empathy can help all of my students
thrive in group and partner situations. It will be a challenge for some, as with these few students in my last
practicum class, but I know progress can be made, however small.