Reflections on empathic design: a K-16 perspective
- PDF / 590,853 Bytes
- 4 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 17 Downloads / 227 Views
Reflections on empathic design: a K‑16 perspective Heather Lynn Keahey1 Accepted: 10 November 2020 © Association for Educational Communications and Technology 2020
Abstract This paper offers a response to the article entitled, “Empathic design: imagining the cognitive and emotional learner experience” (Tracey and Hutchinson, Educational Technology Research and Development 67(5):1259–1272, 2019). This review examines the recent published study on empathic design in consideration of practical applications for K-16 settings. The case study explores the alignment of the designers’ sensitivities with the learner perceptions of a web-based collaborative tool, the Virtual Hospital, developed for health professionals. Aspects of the study and empathic design can be useful in the development and evaluation of similar tools across all educational levels. The noted flexibility in the design discussions and the continued focus towards student affect are two facets which could support the development of educational technology tools. One noted limitation when applying the findings to K-16 students is that the collaborative program in the study was designed for health professionals with advanced degrees. Two suggestions are offered to make a comparable project more suitable for the K-16 environment. First, build an evaluative piece that contains an objective assessment to measure collaboration and second, include the teacher perspective in the design and evaluative process. The reviewed study offers an excellent blueprint for further work with empathic design. Keywords Empathic design · Instructional design · Designer–learner design matching As a shift to digital instruction in education becomes more commonplace, a focus is placed on good instructional design in the creation and development of educational tools. As schools, teachers, students and parents rely more and more on online and digital educational formats, instructional design of quality learning materials is paramount. In order to offer a more meaningful learning experience, instructional designers can employ empathic processes in an effort to create beneficial learner experiences. This paper offers a response to a recently published study by Tracey and Hutchinson (2019) examining an empathic approach in instructional design. The discussion provides practical implications and applications of the study and empathic design for K-16 settings.
* Heather Lynn Keahey [email protected] 1
Department of Mathematics, Wharton County Junior College, 911 Boling Highway, Wharton, TX 77488, USA
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
H. L. Keahey
Article summary Empathic design adds a human-centered approach to instructional design and encourages the considerations of the designer towards the human experience of the end-user and towards the collaborative nature of design process (Mattelmäki et al. 2014). Empathic forecasting involves predicting another person’s affective experience in a future event (Pollmann and Finkenauer 2009). Using empathic forecasting is important in instructional
Data Loading...
