Gather information from and about your learners. You may already have useful information that you have gathered through feedback from course evaluations, emails, and other communication, but ideally you’ll create a specific method of gathering feedback for this exercise. You might do this through conversations or other forms of communication. Ask you learners what they think, feel, say, do, see, and hear. What do they have difficulty understanding or doing?

To Do:

  1. Create an empathy map
  2. Reflect on the feedback you’ve collected from your learners and begin sketching your empathy map. You can do this on paper, in a Word document, or we’ve developed as a Google document Empathy Map Template with fields for you to answer the guiding questions.
    • In the Google document, look under the File menu for an option to
    • Copy it to your own account
    • (or you can Download it as a file).
  3. Rename the file to represent yourself. Then complete the template.
  4. After your Empathy Map is complete, try to get additional feedback in one of the following ways:
    • Seek out a colleague within your department/disciplinary area to discuss with him/her. See if there are shared concerns, or perhaps strategies they might suggest that you have not considered.
    • Circle back to your learners to make sure what you’ve captured accurately reflects their experience. This could involve a conversation with one or more of the group you interviewed.
  5. Submit a shareable link, upload your file or take a photo of your map as your response to this activity.
  6. After you make your submission, save the web address to your response (found in the green confirmation box) so you can use it later for your badge submission form.

This activity is part of the Empathize section of the Technologist Module.

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Resources for this Activity

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171 Responses for this Activity

  • “Empathy Map” Activity
    by David Schenk (@dschenk)

    “Empathy Map” Activity submitted on the shared file https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1P2DJFP7SQSSB8KdOErCRn4boWQYCo6TDD-WPjEtsc1w/edit?usp=sharing Or https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1P2DJFP7SQSSB8KdOErCRn4boWQYCo6TDD-WPjEtsc1w/edit  

  • Empathy Map
    by Andrew Molas (@amolas)

    Please see my empathy map attached

  • VNUHCMC Research Method – Learner Empathy Map
    by Thuy-Anh Ngo (@angothuy)

    Submission of the empathy map for the Technologist module.

  • Empathy Map
    by Ridhima Bhatia (@Ridhima)

    I have created this empathy map to understand my target audience, the pains and gains, and what they exactly feel about the resources and services we are providing here. And what they actually say and do around this.

  • EMPATHY MAP
    by Cindy Cheung (@CCheung)

    I created an empathy map on some of the challenges in delivering a microanatomy course where some students do not have a background in histology or science.  By highlighting and mapping out some of the road blocks and difficulties some of the students face, I can re-evaluate my delivery on the course and promote more more… »

  • Empathy Map
    by Heather Melo (@Heather)

    I created my empathy map with a focus on a group of students who have cognitive delays or exceptionalities. I absolutely love working with this group of students. I wanted to better understand why they may experience challenges in engaging in class discussions. I realize there is great value in participating in class discussions and more… »

  • Empathy Map
    by Valerie McQueen (@Vmcqueen)

    I did a learner empathy map for my Wireless Information Networking student’s project course.  They often don’t come into the activity feeling very enthusiastic about doing a project as that isn’t for the most part their goal with the program, but by the end they are usually quite happy with what they have accomplished.

  • Empathy Map
    by Ana Maria Peric (@anamaria.peric)

    A large part of the program I help teach is asynchronous and online, which some students struggle with for various reasons. I have completed this empathy map using the common feedback I hear from students regarding the structure of the program.

  • Learner Empathy Map for learners with LD’s
    by Lorinda Seward (@Lorinda)

    As I am not (yet) a teacher, I adapted this activity slightly.  My son, as I mentioned previously, has severe learning disabilities.  He did manage, with a lot of support, to graduate highschool, but has expressed an absolute unwillingness to consider post-secondary education.  I had a discussion with him about this and our discussion was more… »

  • Empathy Map
    by Joanna MacDougall (@Joanna MacDougall)

    I created this empathy map using feedback I get from my students. I ask them for anonymous feedback about six weeks into the course using the “Stop, Start, Continue” format. This provides me with good ideas on how to make improvements during the course as well as for future courses. I also get feedback at more… »

    2 Resources for this Activity

    Creative Commons License
    This work by Ontario Extend is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

    2 Responses to “Empathy Map”

    1. Natalia Trubochkina

      am teaching in the LINC Program (Language Instruction to Newcomers to Canada). My students are newcomers to Canada learning English. In my Empathy Map, I tried to look at how my students feel about taking English classes through Zoom. This has been a huge change for all of us, but even more for these students because of the language barrier, no computers, and lack of digital literacy for many of them.
      https://stuconestogacon-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/ntrubochkina_conestogac_on_ca/EUbn4fKMtMZFkAagJcqXjcoBWfRUpu4FV35YECygzPYwNQ?e=XAJAT7

      Reply

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