An Examination of Physics Teachers Use of Empathy Using Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

• In Event: Improving Minority Students' STEM Learning Through Funds of Knowledge and Culturally Responsive Practices

Abstract

The move toward recognizing and leveraging students’ resources as starting points of learning is fundamental to both Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) and Responsive STEM Teaching. Both require teacher empathy--the disposition to understand and respond to students' cognitive, behavioral, and affective situations that impact learning. Traditionally teacher empathy has focused on showing concern for students as humans and to orient them emotionally. There has been far less attention paid to teachers’ empathy for students as thinkers and doers in the discipline. The purpose of this case study was to examine the kinds of empathy that shaped a high school physics teacher's efforts toward CRP. We discuss the particular tensions embedded in the act of CRP in a physics context.

Authors

• Clausell Mathis, Michigan State University

• Sherry A. Southerland, Florida State University