Leaning Into the Discomfort: Using Empathic Modeling for Deeper Learning
We often lament the response we get from students when we try to get them to take their curiosity beyond the course content. “What do I have to know and do to pass?” This can be frustrating: we want our students to do well with their assessments, but we also want them to learn in a way that sparks their curiosity, imagination, and ability to make connections with the course.
Dr. Deana McDonagh (FAA, Carle and Beckman), uses what she calls the pedagogy of discomfort to help students unlearn their assumptions about what they have learned and what their abilities and the abilities of others are. To help students unlearn, Mcdonagh instructs students to participate in activities that display empathic modeling and model physical impairments.
To learn more about empathic modeling and the pedagogy of discomfort, watch the recent Art of Teaching session featuring Deana.
This content is reposted from the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. Read the original post here.