Examining the Role of Epistemic Empathy in Responsive Teaching

• In Event: Responding, Relating, Caring: How Teachers Respond to Students

Abstract

Studies have shown that teachers’ responsiveness to students’ epistemic work and experiences in the classroom is critical for promoting student agency, disciplinary engagement, and equitable participation. Yet what allows teachers to enact responsive teaching is less clear. We argue that “epistemic empathy”—the capacity for tuning into and appreciating students’ cognitive and emotional experience in constructing, communicating, and critiquing knowledge— is a key driver for responsive teaching. Here, we take a first step to empirically examine whether and how preservice teachers’ stances of epistemic empathy align with their enactment of responsive teaching practices. We end with implications for teacher education to cultivate epistemic empathy as a target for teacher learning.

Authors

• Lama Ziad Jaber, Florida State University

• Shannon Gooden Davidson, Florida State University