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3.4.1 Empathy in Action: A Toolkit for the Gifted Classroom

For teachers looking for ways to enhance their classroom climate and support the social and emotional needs of their students, Empathy in Action provides tools that can be used over time to develop empathy skills. The EIA Toolkit includes a powerpoint that highlights ways in which the teacher can set expectations in the classroom that foster empathy in action in students. Particular focus is on the gifted students in the class who are often the most empathetic and can be painfully sensitive to the needs of others. Some gifted students, however, need to develop more empathy. The Toolkit also provides a checklist with attributes that teachers and students can observe and a self-reflection chart for students or teachers. A rubric for monitoring growth in empathy skills caps off the Toolkit. This theory into practice session is based on research and current understandings of how social and emotional attributes impact student learning and mental health. The emphasis for this presentation is on how empathy skills may be developed and monitored in a classroom. Nine empathy practices have been created based on the empathy habits defined in Dr. Michelle Borba’s book, UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in an All-About-Me World. The nine practices integrate empathy habits with characteristics of students who are gifted to create a strategy to set classroom and student goals and monitor outcomes. The Toolkit includes examples of specific learning activities that can target empathy skills in addition to discipline area learning outcomes. Oftentimes, activities that teachers are already using can be adapted to include empathy skills targets.

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