Pivoting to digital empathy

Empathy in the classroom is at the root of the soft-skills an educator should have. It shows you care more than just delivering the hard knowledge you are supposed to. But how can you put communication to work in an empathic way in your digital classroom?

In our online classrooms we rely on digital products to communicate and deliver our courses by sharing. Empathy has always been related to communication and sharing has always been at the core of communication.

These products have different ways you can share information. As educators we need to understand the tools we are using to better navigate the on-line sea of information.

You don’t need to get deep into how apps are made in this quest for this digital empathy. Concepts like Design thinking and fields like User experience are getting more and more popular these days. They express systems and processes, develop tools and give a glimpse in the human psyche.

One tool called The empathy map helps designers and engineers deliver digital products that we as trainers can use in an engaging way.

The way you could use empathy mapping in your classroom is by observing your participants and putting all the information in one place. This information refers to: What you hear them say, what they do, hear and see or what they think & feel. In all of the above the focus would be on the actual words they use. Thus having a general picture of pains and gains of your participants and finding ways to provide solutions to them could give a more empathic approach to your education style.

Using the knowledge that you gain from physical interactions and discovering how the digital products enable you to emulate the same thing.

Empathy mapping won’t come into your practice if it’s not welcomed or you don’t make time for it. Trainers that love what they do find it easier to put the time in knowing the participants they interact with by:

• Being curious and asking the participants about themselves;
• Finding out where they come from and where they want to go;
• Asking what’s important for them and understanding the answers;
• Making the material you are teaching relevant to them;
• Listen and repeat what you heard;
• Encourage the participants with kind words;