Learning to Care for Students as Epistemic Agents: The Development of Epistemic Empathy in Preservice Science and Math Teachers

• In Event: 58.044 - Equitable Instruction Across Content Areas

Abstract

Equitable math and science instruction, instruction that builds on students’ experiential, linguistic, and cultural resources, requires that teachers attend closely to what students bring into the classroom. This attention entails, in part, that teachers “see” the world from the students’ perspectives. Here we nominate the construct of “epistemic empathy” to draw attention to how preservice teachers come to “see”, understand, and draw on students’ cognitive and emotional experiences within epistemic activities, meaning activities aimed at the construction and critique of knowledge in the pursuit of understanding. Epistemic empathy, we argue, is key for equitable instruction in science and mathematics, and we examine how it can be cultivated in the context of tutoring field experiences for preservice science and mathematics teachers.

Authors

• Sherry A. Southerland, Florida State University

• Lama Ziad Jaber, Florida State University

• Felisha Dake, Florida State University