Will The Use Of Technology Help In Teaching Young Learners Empathy?

Most people think sympathy and empathy are the same things. They fail to understand they are both different. Sympathy is the feeling of showing pettiness or feeling sorry for others. Empathy is the feeling which gives you the ability to put yourself in another's shoes and see from their vision how they are feeling.

In other words, empathy gives you the ability to understand other's emotions and you can be able to think or know why they are feeling in a certain way, which will help you to connect with them better.

From early childhood education, every teacher teaches core academic subjects, and extra-curricular subject like physical education is also there. But there is one more topic that should and must focus on which is empathy.

It helps the teacher to understand students’ behavior and the reason behind every action they take and you can communicate or show that you understand their feelings which will ultimately build trust and good rapport.

In this technologically advanced era, there are plenty of ways to teach empathy to your students. In addition, according to facultyfocus.com, article 70% of students prefer online education, because it helps to improve their learning experiences and grades as well.

We also recommend our B.Ed. in early childhood education course to gather in-depth knowledge of teaching young learners empathy through multiple ways which will prepare you to become one of the best early childhood education teachers.

Now you have a basic idea of how empathy can help you to become a better teacher. Let's get to know multiple ways, how you can teach empathy to your students as well with the help of technology?

1. Test Empathy level of every student

   Before even starting to teach empathy language, you must know how much each one of your students carries empathy with them. You can observe or ask What if? questions with every student on one in one interactive session where you ask hypothetical questions to test their empathy skills such as What if your friend is having a bad day? What would you do.

   By asking these kinds of questions you will get to know how concerned they’re about others, how much they feel about other distressing feelings, and if they can put themselves in other shoes and can be able to feel what the other person is going through or not.

2. Teach Empathy using Technology

   Empathy is a language skill that cannot be taught theoretically, it needs to be learned by doing practically. What’s the better way in this modern technologically advanced era to take the help of technology to teach empathy?

   Note: You need to arrange plenty of resources before the classes to teach empathy of different aspects such as animated or any video clip according to the situation which you will be teaching, pictures, or simply a gif to show different types of emotions by facial expression without saying. Now let’s get to know how you can teach different aspects of Empathy to your Students:

   i. Regulating self-emotions:

   Before even starting to understand others, they need to first understand their emotions and behaviour. As a teacher, you can help to understand their emotions like when they are in bad mood, have a conversation to find the root cause of it and you can take the help of any relevant video clips on the internet as well which show how a person deals with their bad emotions.

   ii. Connect with others:

   Teach your students to find common likings or behavior to connect with their peers such as both students might like to play with blocks. This will teach students to form strong bonds with others in the long run.

   iii. Showing sympathy for others:

   While both empathy and sympathy are different. Sympathy is actually a part of Empathy. And teaching young learners sympathy is very essential for children's better growth in their emotional quotient. You can help them to be sympathetic towards others by asking probing questions like, What would you do, if your friend is sad?

   iii. Understanding others' perspectives:

   Putting oneself in other shoes and understanding their perspective from their lenses is a bit higher skill to learn for early childhood education but it’s possible through practice. One can see the other student is in a bad mood, so he/she can think when I am in a bad mood, I like to eat chocolates to feel better, so maybe it will help another student too.

   iv. Understanding tonalities & facial emotions:

   It’s a subtle part of empathy that many don’t focus on. Teach your students to understand emotions by seeing facial expressions, and understanding the emotions by listening to other people's statements. You can take the help of many visual clips, different pictures, or even gifs.

3. Benefits of Technology while teaching Empathy:

   There are plenty of resources and ways to use technology during teaching young learners empathy. Like-

   i. Use of a video call app like Skype can help students to listen to other guest speakers who are sharing experiences on how to learn empathy, or they can meet other nations.

   ii. Students will be able to meet other students from different countries, race and they can understand their perspectives by interacting with them.

   iii. There are plenty of games that help to teach different aspects of empathy such as “One Globe Kid” which gives students the opportunity to explore the world virtually, make new friends and learn about them and their cultures. “Who Am I” is a game which has been awarded for one of the most important products out of 100 for parents and children. It teaches students about different races and makes them empathetic toward other races.

Final Thoughts

In early childhood education we see teacher focuses on core subjects and even physical education but they are not focusing on the very important skill which is to have Empathy. Teaching young learners from a very young age helps them to build connections with others, understand others' feelings and make them able to see situations from another perspective as well. You can learn more in-depth about teaching empathy and other important teaching skills from our recommended B.Ed. in Early Childhood Education as well.

Looking for earning a B.Ed. in Early Childhood Education certification? If yes then call us at +66-21055721 or drop a mail at asiancollegeofteachers@gmail.com. Chat with our expert if you have any questions, send us an email to find out more.