# data[].attributes.body
Annotated Bibliography

# data[].attributes.body
Teacher as researcher's mantra: "what have I learned from this investigation, what should I do now?"
(Mills, p.163)

# data[].attributes.body
District Wide approach to better understanding in the social studies class room

# data[].attributes.body
Provocative idea

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Say you are getting ready for a blind date or a job interview. What should you do? Besides shower and shave, of course, it turns out you should read - but not just anything. Something by Chekhov or Alice Munro will help you navigate new social territory better than a potboiler by Danielle Steel.

That is the conclusion of a study published Thursday in the journal Science. It found that after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence - skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to read someone's body language or gauge what they might be thinking.

The researchers say the reason is that literary fiction often leaves more to the imagination, encouraging readers to make inferences about characters and be sensitive to emotional nuance and complexity.

"This is why I love science," Louise Erdrich, whose novel "The Round House" was used in one of the experiments, wrote in an e-mail. The researchers, she said, "found a way to prove true the intangible benefits of literary fiction."

"Thank God the research didn't find that novels increased tooth decay or blocked up your arteries," she added.

The researchers, social psychologists at the New School for Social Research in New York City, recruited their subjects through that über-purveyor of reading material, Amazon.com. To find a broader pool of participants than the usual college students, they used Amazon's Mechanical Turk service, where people sign up to earn money for completing small jobs.

People ranging in age from 18 to 75 were recruited for each of five experiments. They were paid $2 or $3 each to read for a few minutes. Some were given excerpts from award-winning literary fiction (Don DeLillo, Wendell Berry). Others were given best sellers like Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl," a Rosamunde Pilcher romance or a Robert Heinlein science fiction tale.

In one experiment, some participants were given nonfiction excerpts, but we're not talking "All the President's Men." To maximize the contrast, the researchers - looking for nonfiction that was well-written, but not literary or about people - turned to Smithsonian Magazine. "How the Potato Changed the World" was one selection. "Bamboo Steps Up" was another.

After reading - or in some cases reading nothing - the participants took computerized tests that measure people's ability to decode emotions or predict a person's expectations or beliefs in a particular scenario. In one test, called "Reading the Mind in the Eyes," subjects did just that: they studied 36 photographs of pairs of eyes and chose which of four adjectives best described the emotion each showed.

Is the woman with the smoky eyes aghast or doubtful? Is the man whose gaze has slivered to a squint suspicious or indecisive? Is she interested or irritated, flirtatious or hostile? Is he fantasizing or guilty, dominant or horrified? Or annoyed that his tech stock dropped half a percent on the Nasdaq in a round of late trading after news from the Middle East? (Just kidding - that last one isn't on the test.)

The idea that what we read might influence our social and emotional skills is not new. Previous studies have correlated various types of reading with empathy and sensitivity. More recently, in a field called "theory of mind," scientists have used emotional intelligence perception tests to study, for example, children with autism.

But psychologists and other experts said the new study was powerful because it suggested a direct effect - quantifiable by measuring how many right and wrong answers people got on the tests - from reading literature for only a few minutes.

"It's a really important result," said Nicholas Humphrey, an evolutionary psychologist who has written extensively about human intelligence, and who was not involved in the research. "That they would have subjects read for three to five minutes and that they would get these results is astonishing."

Dr. Humphrey, an emeritus professor at Cambridge University's Darwin College, said he would have expected that reading generally would make people more empathetic and understanding. "But to separate off literary fiction, and to demonstrate that it has different effects from the other forms of reading, is remarkable," he said.

Experts said the results implied that people could be primed for social skills like empathy, just as watching a clip from a sad movie can make one feel more emotional.

"This really nails down the causal direction," said Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the study. "These people have done not one experiment but five, and they have found the same effects."

The researchers - Emanuele Castano, a psychology professor, and David Comer Kidd, a doctoral candidate - found that people who read literary fiction scored better than those who read popular fiction. This was true even though, when asked, subjects said they did not enjoy literary fiction as much. Literary fiction readers also scored better than nonfiction readers - and popular fiction readers made as many mistakes as people who read nothing.

There is much the study does not address: How long could such effects last? Would three months of reading Charles Dickens and Jane Austen produce larger or smaller effects, or have no impact? Are the differences in scores all attributable to the type of material read? Would the results hold if the same person read all of the types? And would it matter if the literary fiction was particularly difficult? (Nobody was asked to read James Joyce or Thomas Pynchon.)

The study's authors and other academic psychologists said such findings should be considered by educators designing curriculums, particularly the Common Core standards adopted by most states, which assign students more nonfiction.

"Frankly, I agree with the study," said Albert Wendland, who directs a master's program in writing popular fiction at Seton Hill University. "Reading sensitive and lengthy explorations of people's lives, that kind of fiction is literally putting yourself into another person's position - lives that could be more difficult, more complex, more than what you might be used to in popular fiction. It makes sense that they will find that, yeah, that can lead to more empathy and understanding of other lives."

He added: "Maybe popular fiction is a way of dealing more with one's own self, maybe, with one's own wants, desires, needs."
In popular fiction, said Mr. Kidd, one of the researchers, "really the author is in control, and the reader has a more passive role."

In literary fiction, like Dostoyevsky, "there is no single, overarching authorial voice," he said. "Each character presents a different version of reality, and they aren't necessarily reliable. You have to participate as a reader in this dialectic, which is really something you have to do in real life."

Dr. Castano added that, in many cases, "popular fiction seems to be more focused on the plot."

"Characters can be interchangeable and usually more stereotypical in the way they are described," he said.

Ms. Erdrich, the author, said the study made her feel "personally cheered."

"Writers are often lonely obsessives, especially the literary ones. It's nice to be told what we write is of social value," she said. "However, I would still write even if novels were useless."

Want to help the researchers with their work? You can participate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
For Better Social Skills, Scientists Recommend a Little Chekhov

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Say you are getting ready for a blind date or a job interview. What should you do? Besides shower and shave, of course, it turns out you should read - but not just anything. Something by Chekhov or Alice Munro will help you navigate new social territory better than a potboiler by Danielle Steel.

# data[].attributes.body
I want to research for the most effective assessments for my logical/mathematical preference students in the context of the AP exam format: multiple choice and free response essay

# data[].attributes.body
Can you teach empathy?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Teaching empathy: Evidence-based tips for fostering empathy in children

© 2009 - 2017 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved

Teaching empathy? That might sound strange if you think of empathy as an innate, fixed trait -- a talent that some people are born with, and others lack.

But empathy isn't an all or nothing proposition. It isn't something that unfolds automatically, in every situation. It isn't even a single ability or skill.

As Jean Decety and Jason Cowell have argued (2014), the word "empathy" has become a "catch-all" term for three distinct processes:

1. Emotional sharing (also called "emotional contagion"), which occurs when we experience feelings of distress as a result of observing distress in another individual

2. Empathic concern, which is the motivation to care for individuals who are vulnerable or distressed, and

3. Perspective-taking, the "ability to consciously put oneself in the mind of another individual and imagine what that person is thinking or feeling."

When we speak in everyday terms of someone being "very empathic," or showing "low empathy," we're probably guilty of mixing up several distinct concepts.

Certainly, some individuals score high in all three areas, and others (a very small portion of the population) may test poorly across the board. But it's common for people to experience these phenomena in varying degrees -- and to change over time.

For instance, many young children show high levels of emotional sharing; demonstrate strong, but more limited, evidence of empathic concern; and struggle with certain types of perspective-taking.

As they get older, their perspective-taking skills improve, especially when we provide them with opportunities to practice.

They learn social norms about when and how show to empathic concern. They also learn about their own emotional responses.

These experiences might lead to enhanced empathy for others, or the reverse. Children may learn to show more responsiveness and caring, or less. It depends on the content of their lessons.

Were they taught that empathy often requires an open-mind, and an effort to learn how differently others experience the world?

Did they learn to shut out unpleasant feelings by retreating from people in distress? Or did they learn how to control their personal reactions so they can respond with sympathy and help?

Did they learn practical, concrete actions to take when someone is in trouble?

Did they learn that empathy is to be reserved for a select few -- or for individuals from every walk of life?

So empathy isn't something you either have or lack, and it isn't something that develops automatically, without input from the environment.

There are different facets and degrees of empathy, and the way we socialize children matters.

Here are some tips for teaching empathy--tips inspired by scientific research.

Teaching empathy tip #1: Provide children with the support they need to develop strong self-regulation skills

Feeling someone else's pain is unpleasant, so it shouldn't surprise us if a child's first impulse is to shrink away. Children are more likely to overcome this impulse when they feel secure, and have strong self-regulation skills.

For instance, when children have secure attachment relationships with their caregivers, they know they can count on their caregivers for emotional and physical support. And these children are more likely to sympathize and offer help to people in distress (Waters et al 1979; Kestenbaum et al 1989; Barnett 1987).

In addition, children who are better at regulating their negative emotions tend to show greater empathic concern for others (Song et al 2017).

Thus, we can foster empathy by being "emotion coaches." That means acknowledging (rather than dismissing) our children's negative feelings, and engaging them in conversation about the causes and effects of emotions. It also means helping kids find constructive ways to handle their bad moods.

While emotion coaching has helped kids of all ages, y ounger children who struggle with negative emotions may benefit the most (Johnson et al 2017). In addition, there is evidence that young children develop better perspective-taking skills when we talk to them about mental states -- like beliefs, desires, and goals.

So if you have a toddler, it isn't too early to start thinking about your role as a coach. In one experiment, parents who were encouraged to increase their coaching efforts produced immediate, positive effects. P reschoolers showed improvements in their ability to handle frustration (Loop and Roskam 2016).

Read more in this article about the case for teaching empathy.

Teaching empathy tip #2: Seize everyday opportunities to model-and induce-sympathetic feelings for other people

If you observe someone in distress (in real life, on TV, or in a book), talk with your child about how that person must feel (Pizarro and Salovey 2002). Even a very brief conversation might have an effect.

For example, in an experiment on Dutch school children (age 8-13 years), Jellie Sierksma and her colleagues presented kids with some hypothetical scenarios about school.
It's your classmate's turn to stay late and clean up the classroom. But she wants to go home as soon as possible because her mother is quite ill. She asks you to help her. Would you do it?
In one scenario, the students were told to imagine that the girl was one of their friends. In another scenario, they were told the girl was not one of their friends.

The distinction mattered. Children expressed less willingness to help when the girl wasn't depicted as a friend.

But the results changed when researchers added an extra step to the procedure. Instead of immediately asking children if they would help, the experimenters first asked them to think about the girl, and rate how sad or upset she was likely to be.

After rating emotions, the children showed no bias in favor of the friend. They were equally likely to say they would help the girl, whether she was a friend or not (Sierksma et al 2015). The extra reminder was enough to change children's judgments.

Teaching empathy tip #3: Help kids discover what they have in common with other people

Adults tend to feel greater empathy for an individual when they perceive the individual to be similar to them. They also find it easier to empathize with someone who is familiar. Research suggests that children have similar biases (e.g., Zahn-Waxler et al 1984; Smith 1988).

As a result, one of the best ways to encourage empathy is to make children conscious of what they have in common with others. Another is to get out and meet people from different backgrounds, and learn about what life is like in far away places.

Conversations are helpful, but it's worth remembering that kids are heavily influenced by what we actually do, and less by what we say. Decades of research indicates that one of the biggest predictors of racial prejudice -- and a failure to empathize with members of other groups -- is having little or no contact with people who aren't like you.

Studies also suggest that schools boost empathy in students when they foster multiculturalism -- an inclusive, warm attitude about cultural diversity. Moreover, this enhanced empathy is linked with increased happiness and scholastic achievement (Le et al 2009; Chang and Le 2011).

Teaching empathy tip #4: Foster cognitive empathy through literature and role-playing
Teaching empathy: Why "feeling someone else's pain" isn't the whole story
When we hear the word empathy, we often focus on "emotion sharing." This ability, also called "affective empathy," seems like empathy is its most primal, compelling form.

But it comes with a cost. As noted in the introduction, emotion sharing can make us want to back away, especially when we encounter someone in pain or distress.

And even if we resist this impulse, our own emotions can distract us from accurately judging what a victim really needs.

Thus, having affective empathy isn't enough. To be good helpers, we also need cognitive empathy -- the ability to take another person's perspective, and imagine what actions might make that person feel better. The process is more dispassionate and cerebral, and less stressful. It's also leads to more accurate judgments.

In brain scan studies, individuals who score high in cognitive empathy tend to experience less stress reactivity when they witness distress in others. And they are actually better at responding in helpful ways (e.g., Ho et al 2014).

So how do we foster cognitive empathy?

Fictional stories and real-life narratives offer excellent opportunities for teaching empathy and sharpening a child's perspective-taking skills. What do the characters think, believe, want, or feel? And how do we know it? When we actively discuss these questions, kids may learn a lot about the way other people's minds work (Dunn et al 2001).

In one experimental study, 110 school kids (aged 7 years) were enrolled in a reading program. Some students were randomly assigned to engage in conversations about the emotional content of the stories they read. Others were asked only to produce drawings about the stories.

After two months, the kids in the conversation group showed greater advances in emotion comprehension, theory of mind, and empathy, and the positive outcomes "remained stable for 6 months" (Ornaghi et al 2014).

Other research suggests that role-playing is useful. In an elaborate role-playing trial, researchers asked young, healthy medical students to simulate the difficulties of old age. For example, students wore goggles covered with transparent tape to simulate the effects of cataracts, and heavy rubber gloves to experience poor motor control. After the experiment, the students showed greater empathy towards the elderly (Varkey et al 2006).

Teaching empathy tip #5: Foster cognitive empathy through compassion training

Literature and role-playing can provide children with insights into other minds and other perspectives. But what about those feelings of personal distress? How do we keep affective empathy from overwhelming us? Research suggests that certain meditation practices -- mindfulness meditation and compassion meditation -- may be helpful.

For example, in studies of compassion training, participants "visualize their own past suffering, and relate to it with feelings of warmth and care" (Klimecki et al 2014).

To maintain this focus, they repeat phrases like "may I be sheltered by compassion," "may I be safe," and " may I be free from this suffering." Then participants repeat the exercise, but with other individuals as the targets for compassion. They start by imagining a close loved one, and then extend their compassionate wishes to a series of others -- a neutral person, an difficult person, and humanity in general (Leiberg et al 2011; Klimecki et al 2014).

For adults, a single day of training has been enough to yield differences in brain activity and behavior. Compared with individuals who received memory training, individuals trained in compassion were more likely to help a stranger during the course of a game (Lieberg et al 2011).

Also, compared with participants trained in affective empathy, they showed less activity in parts of the brain associated with "second-hand" pain and distress. Yet brain regions linked with reward, love, and affiliation remained active (Klimecki et al 2014).

Similar techniques have been used successfully with adolescents (Reddy et al 2013), and they may be adaptable for younger individuals.

For preschoolers, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed and tested a 12 week classroom program called the Kindness Curriculum (Flook et al 2015).

Among other things, it features group lessons in attention to emotions in the self and others; practical brainstorming sessions for helping others; and exercises in showing gratitude. A randomized, controlled study found the program to be effective for teaching empathy and preschool social skills (Flook et al 2015).

The researchers responsible for the Kindness Curriculum are making it available to the public for free. You can sign up for your own copy here.

Teaching empathy tip #6: Help young children improve their face-reading skills

It's hard to show empathy if you can't read faces well.

Some children -- preschoolers in particular -- are at a disadvantage because they misinterpret facial expressions. If you show them photographs of people modeling different emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust), these kids misidentify what they see. And their difficulties can cause social problems (Parker 2013).

Is there anything we can do about this? Yes. For more information, see these evidence-based tips on how to help children decipher non-verbal cues of emotion.

For older kids and tees,

Teaching empathy tip #7: Show kids how to "make a face" while they try to imagine how someone else feels.

Suppose I tell you to make a sad face. It's just play acting, right?

Not really.

Experiments show that simply "going through the motions" of making a facial expression can make us experience the associated emotion.

When researchers have asked people to imitate certain facial expressions, they have detected changes in brain activity that are characteristic of the corresponding emotions. People also experience emotion-appropriate changes in heart rate, skin conductance, and body temperature (Decety and Jackson 2004).

So it seems likely that we can boost our empathic powers by imitating the facial expressions of people we want to empathize with. (Pretty cool, eh? And it's not a new idea. As neuroscientists Jean Decety and Philip L. Jackson point out, this method was suggested by Edgar Allen Poe in his short story the Purloined Letter.)

Teaching empathy tip #8: Help children develop a sense of morality that depends on internal self-control, not on rewards or punishments

Kids are capable of being spontaneously helpful and sympathetic. But experimental studies have shown that kids can become less likely to help others if they are given material rewards for doing so.

Other research has shown that kids are more likely to develop an internal sense of right and wrong if their parents use inductive discipline--an approach that emphasizes rational explanations and moral consequences, not arbitrary rules and heavy-handed punishments.

For instance, kids are more likely to internalize moral principles when their parents talk to them about how wrong-doing affects other people--inducing empathy and feelings of guilt (Hoffman and Saltzein 1967).

For related information, see this article about authoritative parenting, parental style that features an inductive approach to discipline. In addition, see these tips for fostering self-control and handling disruptive, aggressive behavior.

Teaching empathy tip #9: Educate kids about failures of the imagination

Have you ever failed to prepare adequately for an outing, because you didn't imagine how cold, or hungry, or thirsty, or tired you were going to be? This is what researchers call the " hot-cold empathy gap," and it appears to be a universal problem.

When people are comfortable, calm, and confident, they forget what it's like to be in the grip of a "hot" state. They forget how desperate certain physical conditions -- like hunger, thirst, sleeplessness, and pain -- can make one feel. And they underestimate the power of emotional states, like fear.

The hot-cold empathy gap leads to mistakes in judgment and failures of empathy. But once we understand how the hot-cold empathy gap works, we can use it to teach empathy.

For instance, when we're taking with our children about something painful that they've experienced, we can offer them examples of other people who've been through something similar. The idea isn't to dismiss the child's feelings, but rather to acknowledge those feelings, and help the child feel more connected with others.

In addition, we can teach kids about the existence of the empathy gap, and the way it can bias our judgments. Before we decide that someone is being unreasonable, we should ask ourselves: Have we forgotten what it feels like to be in his situation?

Teaching empathy tip #10: Talk with children about mechanisms of moral disengagement -- the rationalizations that people use to justify callous or cruel acts

Research has demonstrated that average, well-adjusted people can be persuaded to harm others-even torture them-as long as they are provided with the right rationale.

In a famous series of experiments developed by Stanley Milgram of Yale University, subjects were told that they were participating in a "learning experiment" that required them to administer painful electric shocks to another person (Milgram 1963).

The "experiment" was a fake, a ruse made convincing with plausible props and an actor who pretended to be in pain after the study participants pressed a button. But the participants were fooled and-urged on by an authoritative man in a white lab coat-they dutifully administered shocks to the screaming "victim." In fact, almost 65% of participants continued to press the button even after the "victim" had appeared to fall unconscious (Milgram 1963).

These people weren't psychopaths. They were ordinary people exposed to social pressure from a plausible authority figure. With the right rationalizations, otherwise decent people can disengage their moral responses. And it's not just an adult phenomenon. Children can do it, too.

If we're really serious about teaching empathy, I think it's important for kids to learn about Milgram's research and about the kinds of rationalizations that people use to excuse callous or cruel behavior. One of the most common is the tendency to view people from out-groups as less human, or less deserving of respect and compassion.

For more information, check out this article on mechanisms of moral disengagement.

Other helpful ideas for teaching empathy

For related information useful for teaching empathy, check out these research-inspired social skills activities for children and teenagers, as well as these pages about the science of empathy.

References: Tips for teaching empathy

Barnett MA. 1987. Empathy and related responses in children. In N Eisenberg and J Strayer (eds): Empathy and its development. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Chang J and Le TN. 2010. Multiculturalism as a dimension of school climate: the impact on the academic achievement of Asian American and Hispanic youth. Cultur Divers Ethnic Minor Psychol. 16(4):485-92.

Decety J and Cowell JM. 2014. Friends or Foes: Is Empathy Necessary for Moral Behavior? Perspect Psychol Sci. 9(5):525-37.

Decety J and Jackson PL. 2004. The functional architecture of human empathy. Behavioral and cognitive neuroscience reviews 3(2):71-100.

Dunn J, Brown J, Slomkowski C, Tesla, C and Youngblade L. 1991. Young children's understanding of the other people's feelings and beliefs: Individual differences and their antecedents. Child Development 62: 1352-1366.

Flook L., Goldberg S.B., Pinger L., and Davidson R.J. (2015). Promoting prosocial behavior and self-regulatory skills in preschool children through a mindfulness-based Kindness Curriculum. Dev Psychol. 51(1):44-51.

Gavazzi IG and Ornaghi V. 2011. Emotional state talk and emotion understanding: a training study with preschool children. J Child Lang. 38(5):1124-39.

Hoffman ML and Saltzein HD. 1967. Parental discipline and the child's moral development. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 5: 45-57.

Kestenbaum R, Farber EA and Sroufe LA 1989. Individual differences in empathy among preschoolers: Relation to attachment history. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 44: 51-6.

Klimecki OM1, Leiberg S2, Ricard M2, Singer T3. Differential pattern of functional brain plasticity after compassion and empathy training. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2014 Jun;9(6):873-9.

Kidd DC and Castano E. 2013. Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind. Science. 342(6156):377-80.

Laneri D, Krach S, Paulus FM, Kanske P, Schuster V, Sommer J, Müller-Pinzler L. 2017. Mindfulness meditation regulates anterior insula activity during empathy for social pain. Hum Brain Mapp. 38(8):4034-4046.

Le TN, Lai MH, Wallen J. 2009. Multiculturalism and subjective happiness as mediated by cultural and relational variables. Cultur Divers Ethnic Minor Psychol. 15(3):303-13

LeBlanc LA, Coates AM, Daneshvar S, Charlop-Christe MJ, Morris C and Lancaster BM. 2003. Using video modeling and reinforcement to teach perspective-taking skills to children with autism. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 36:253-257.

Loop L and Riskam I. 2016. Do children behave better when parents' emotion coaching practices are stimulated? A micro-trial study. Journal of Child and Family Studies 25(7): 2223-2235.

Martin GB and Clark RD. 1987. Distress crying in neonates: Species and peer specificity. Developmental Psychology 18: 3-9.

Milgram S. 1963. Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67: 371-378.

Murphy LB. 1937. Social behavior and child personality: An exploratory study of some roots of sympathy. Columbia University Press.

Ornaghi V, Brockmeier J, Grazzani I. 2014. Enhancing social cognition by training children in emotion understanding: A primary school study.J Exp Child Psychol. 119:26-39.

Panero ME, Weisberg DS, Black J, Goldstein TR, Barnes JL, Brownell H, Winner E. 2016. Does Reading a Single Passage of Literary Fiction Really Improve Theory of Mind? An Attempt at Replication. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2016 Sep 19. [Epub ahead of print]

Parker AE, Mathis ET, Kupersmidt JB. 2013. How is this child feeling? Preschool-aged children's ability to recognize emotion in faces and body poses. Early Educ Dev. 24(2):188-211.

Pizarro DA and Salovey P. 2002. Being and becoming a good person: The role of emotional intelligence in moral development and behavior. In J Aronson (ed): Improving Academic Achievement: Impact of psychological factors on education. San Diego: Academic Press.

Reddy SD, Tenzin Negy L, Dodson-Lavelle B, Ozawa-de Silva B, Pace TWW, Cole SP, Raison CL, and Craighead LW. 2013. Cognitive-based compassion training: A promising prevention strategy for at-risk adolescents. Journal of Child and Family Studies 22(2):219-230.

Schrandt JA, Townsend DB, Poulson CL. 2009. Teaching empathy skills to children with autism. J Appl Behav Anal. 42(1):17-32.

Sierksma J, Thijs J, and Verkuyten M. 2015. In-group bias in children's intention to help can be overpowered by inducing empathy. Br J Dev Psychol. 33(1):45-56.

Smith PK 1988. The cognitive demands of children's social interactions with peers. In RW Byrne and A Whiten (eds.), Social experience and the evolution of intellect in monkeys, apes, and humans. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Song JH, Colasante T, Malti T. Helping Yourself Helps Others: Linking Children's Emotion Regulation to Prosocial Behavior Through Sympathy and Trust. Emotion. 2017 Jun 5. doi: 10.1037/emo0000332. [Epub ahead of print]

Varkey P, Chutka DS, and Lesnick TG. 2006. The Aging Game: improving medical students' attitudes toward caring for the elderly. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 7(4):224-9.

Waters E, Wippman J, and Sroufe LA. 1979. Attachment, positive affect and competence in the peer group: Two studies in construct

Zahn-Waxler C, Hollenbeck B and Radke-Yarrow. 1984. The origins of empathy and altruism. In MW Fox and LD Mickley (eds): Advances in animal welfare science. Humane Society of the United States.

Images for "Teaching empathy":

image of brother and infant sister by istock

image of man with giggly toddler by Quinn Dombrowski/flickr

image of teenagers by Hepingting/flickr

image of woman reading with kids by Rod Library / flickr

image of girl praying or meditating by Salvation Army USA West / flickr

image of three-headed man by istock

Content of "Teaching empathy" last modified 9/17

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Teaching empathy? That might sound strange if you think of empathy as an innate, fixed trait -- a talent that some people are born with, and others lack. But empathy isn't an all or nothing proposition. It isn't something that unfolds automatically, in every situation. It isn't even a single ability or skill.

# data[].attributes.body
Learning Styles and Social Studies

# data[].attributes.body
How important are learning styles?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
learningstylescerbin - UW Colleges Virtual Teaching & Learning Center

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Virtual Teaching and Learning Center of the University of Wisconsin Colleges

# data[].attributes.body
Teaching in a college level and diverse classroom

# data[].attributes.body
Learning Styles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Research Question What do we know about learning styles that can guide the delivery and design of professional development for faculty and administrators regarding equal access of students with disabilities to courses and programs?

# data[].attributes.body
Learning styles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Cite this guide: Chick, N. (2010). Learning Styles. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/learning-styles-preferences/.

What are Learning Styles?

The term learning styles is widely used to describe how learners gather, sift through, interpret, organize, come to conclusions about, and "store" information for further use. As spelled out in VARK (one of the most popular learning styles inventories), these styles are often categorized by sensory approaches: isual, ural, verbal [eading/writing], and inesthetic. Many of the models that don't resemble the VARK's sensory focus are reminiscent of Felder and Silverman's Index of Learning Styles, with a continuum of descriptors for how learners process and organize information: active-reflective, sensing-intuitive, verbal-visual, and sequential-global.

There are well over 70 different learning styles schemes (Coffield, 2004), most of which are supported by "a thriving industry devoted to publishing learning-styles tests and guidebooks" and "professional development workshops for teachers and educators" (Pashler, et al., 2009, p. 105).

Despite the variation in categories, the fundamental idea behind learning styles is the same: that each of us has a specific learning style (sometimes called a "preference"), and we learn best when information is presented to us in this style. For example, visual learners would learn any subject matter best if given graphically or through other kinds of visual images, kinesthetic learners would learn more effectively if they could involve bodily movements in the learning process, and so on. The message thus given to instructors is that "optimal instruction requires diagnosing individuals' learning style[s] and tailoring instruction accordingly" (Pashler, et al., 2009, p. 105).

Despite the popularity of learning styles and inventories such as the VARK, it's important to know that there is no evidence to support the idea that matching activities to one's learning style improves learning. It's not simply a matter of "the absence of evidence doesn't mean the evidence of absence." On the contrary, for years researchers have tried to make this connection through hundreds of studies.

In 2009, Psychological Science in the Public Interest commissioned cognitive psychologists Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Robert Bjork to evaluate the research on learning styles to determine whether there is credible evidence to support using learning styles in instruction. They came to a startling but clear conclusion: "Although the literature on learning styles is enormous," they "found virtually no evidence" supporting the idea that "instruction is best provided in a format that matches the preference of the learner." Many of those studies suffered from weak research design, rendering them far from convincing. Others with an effective experimental design "found results that flatly contradict the popular" assumptions about learning styles (p. 105). In sum,

"The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing" (p. 117).

Why Are They So Popular?

Pashler and his colleagues point to some reasons to explain why learning styles have gained-and kept-such traction, aside from the enormous industry that supports the concept. First, people like to identify themselves and others by "type." Such categories help order the social environment and offer quick ways of understanding each other. Also, this approach appeals to the idea that learners should be recognized as "unique individuals"-or, more precisely, that differences among students should be acknowledged-rather than treated as a number in a crowd or a faceless class of students (p. 107). Carried further, teaching to different learning styles suggests that " all people have the potential to learn effectively and easily if only instruction is tailored to their individual learning styles " (p. 107).

There may be another reason why this approach to learning styles is so widely accepted. They very loosely resemble the concept of metacognition, or the process of thinking about one's thinking. For instance, having your students describe which study strategies and conditions for their last exam worked for them and which didn't is likely to improve their studying on the next exam (Tanner, 2012). Integrating such metacognitive activities into the classroom-unlike learning styles-is supported by a wealth of research (e.g., Askell Williams, Lawson, & Murray-Harvey, 2007; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Butler & Winne, 1995; Isaacson & Fujita, 2006; Nelson & Dunlosky, 1991; Tobias & Everson, 2002).

Importantly, metacognition is focused on planning, monitoring, and evaluating any kind of thinking about thinking and does nothing to connect one's identity or abilities to any singular approach to knowledge. (For more information about metacognition, see CFT Assistant Director Cynthia Brame's " Thinking about Metacognition " blog post, and stay tuned for a Teaching Guide on metacognition this spring.)

Now What?

There is, however, something you can take away from these different approaches to learning-not based on the learner, but instead on the content being learned. To explore the persistence of the belief in learning styles, CFT Assistant Director Nancy Chick interviewed Dr. Bill Cerbin, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and former Carnegie Scholar with the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. He points out that the differences identified by the labels "visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and reading/writing" are more appropriately connected to the nature of the discipline:

"There may be evidence that indicates that there are some ways to teach some subjects that are just better than others, despite the learning styles of individuals.... If you're thinking about teaching sculpture, I'm not sure that long tracts of verbal descriptions of statues or of sculptures would be a particularly effective way for individuals to learn about works of art. Naturally, these are physical objects and you need to take a look at them, you might even need to handle them." (Cerbin, 2011, 7:45-8:30)

Pashler and his colleagues agree: "An obvious point is that the optimal instructional method is likely to vary across disciplines" (p. 116). In other words, it makes disciplinary sense to include kinesthetic activities in sculpture and anatomy courses, reading/writing activities in literature and history courses, visual activities in geography and engineering courses, and auditory activities in music, foreign language, and speech courses. Obvious or not, it aligns teaching and learning with the contours of the subject matter, without limiting the potential abilities of the learners.

References

Askell-Williams, H., Lawson, M. & Murray, Harvey, R. (2007). 'What happens in my university classes that helps me to learn?': Teacher education students' instructional metacognitive knowledge. International Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 1. 1-21.

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L. & Cocking, R. R., (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school (Expanded Edition). Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Butler, D. L., & Winne, P. H. (1995) Feedback and self-regulated learning: A theoretical synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 65, 245-281.

Cerbin, William. (2011). Understanding learning styles: A conversation with Dr. Bill Cerbin. Interview with Nancy Chick. UW Colleges Virtual Teaching and Learning Center.

Cofﬁeld, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E., & Ecclestone, K. (2004). Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning. A systematic and critical review. London: Learning and Skills Research Centre.

Isaacson, R. M. & Fujita, F. (2006). Metacognitive knowledge monitoring and self-regulated learning: Academic success and reflections on learning. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6, 39-55.

Nelson, T.O. & Dunlosky, J. (1991). The delayed-JOL effect: When delaying your judgments of learning can improve the accuracy of your metacognitive monitoring. Psychological Science, 2, 267-270.

Pashler, Harold, McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest. 9.3 103-119.

Tobias, S., & Everson, H. (2002). Knowing what you know and what you don't: Further research on metacognitive knowledge monitoring. College Board Report No. 2002-3. College Board, NY.

This teaching guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Nancy Chick Print Version Cite this guide: Chick, N. (2010). Learning Styles. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/learning-styles-preferences/. What are Learning Styles? Caution! Why Are They So Popular? Now What? What are Learning Styles? The term learning styles is widely used to describe how learners gather, sift through, interpret, organize, come to...

# data[].attributes.body
Research articles: Learning styles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Students learn in many ways, like seeing, hearing, and experiencing things first hand. But for most students, one of these methods stands out. A simple explanation of learning styles is this: some students remember best materials they've seen, some remember things they've heard, while others remember things they've experienced.

Why is this important? Research has shown that students who study in a way that supports their learning style can can perform better on tests and improve their grades.

For example, visual-learning students will sometimes struggle during essay exams, because they can't recall test material that was "heard" in a lecture.

However, if the visual learner uses a visual aid when studying, like a colorful outline of test materials, he or she may retain more information. For this type of learner, visual tools improve the ability to recall information more completely.

How can you determine your learning style?

Eventually, you may want to consult a professional or your counselor for advice on learning styles, but you may want to take a quick quiz to see if the results match your habits and preferences.

You can also recognize your own style by looking over the characteristics. If any of the traits and characteristics below sound familiar, you may have identified your own style.

Visual Learner Characteristics

Visual learners are those who learn through seeing things. Look over the characteristics below to see if they sound familiar.

A visual learner:

Is good at spelling but forgets names.

Needs quiet study time.

Has to think awhile before understanding lecture.

Is good at spelling.

Likes colors and fashion.

Dreams in color.

Understands/likes charts.

Is good with sign language.

Learning Suggestions for Visual Learners

Draw a map of events in history or draw scientific process.

Make outlines of everything!

Copy what's on the board.

Ask the teacher to diagram.

Diagram sentences!

Take notes, make lists.

Watch videos.

Color code words, research notes.

Outline reading.

Use flashcards.

Use highlighters, circle words, underline.

Best Test Type for Visual Learners:
Diagramming, reading maps, essays (if you've studied using an outline), showing a process
Worst test type:
Auditory Learner Characteristics

Auditory learners are those who learn best through hearing things. Look over these traits to see if they sound familiar to you. You may be an auditory learner if you are someone who:

Likes to read to self out loud.

Is not afraid to speak in class.

Likes oral reports.

Is good at explaining.

Remembers names.

Notices sound effects in movies.

Enjoys music.

Is good at grammar and foreign language.

Reads slowly.

Follows spoken directions well.

Can't keep quiet for long periods.

Enjoys acting, being on stage.

Is good in study groups.

Auditory Learners Can Benefit from:

Using word association to remember facts and lines.

Recording lectures.

Watching videos.

Repeating facts with eyes closed.

Participating in group discussions.

Using audiotapes for language practice.

Taping notes after writing them.

Worst test type:
Reading passages and writing answers about them in a timed test.
Best test type:
Auditory Learners are good at writing responses to lectures they've heard. They're also good at oral exams.

Kinesthetic Learner Characteristics

Kinesthetic learners are those who learn through experiencing/doing things. Look over these traits to see if they sound familiar to you. You may be a kinesthetic learner if you are someone who:

Is good at sports.

Can't sit still for long.

Is not great at spelling.

Does not have great handwriting.

Likes science lab.

Studies with loud music on.

Likes adventure books, movies.

Likes role playing.

Takes breaks when studying.

Builds models.

Is involved in martial arts, dance.

Is fidgety during lectures.

Kinesthetic Learners Can Benefit from:

Studying in short blocks.

Taking lab classes.

Role playing.

Taking field trips, visiting museums.

Studying with others.

Using memory games.

Using flash cards to memorize.

Worst Test Type: Best Test Type:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why It's Important to Know Your Learning Style

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Students learn in many ways, like seeing, hearing, and experiencing things first hand. But for most students, one of these methods stands out. A simple explanation of learning styles is this: some students remember best materials they've seen, some remember things they've heard, while others remember things they've experienced.

# data[].attributes.body
Research articles: What's my teaching style?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Every teacher has her or his own style of teaching. And as traditional teaching styles evolve with the advent of differentiated instruction, more and more teachers are adjusting their approach depending on their students' learning needs.

But there are a few fundamental teaching styles most educators tend to use. Which one is yours?

You've Got Style

These teaching styles highlight the five main strategies teachers use in the classroom, as well as the benefits and potential pitfalls of each.

The Authority, or lecture style

The authority model is teacher-centered and frequently entails lengthy lecture sessions or one-way presentations. Students are expected to take notes or absorb information.

Pros: This style is acceptable for certain higher-education disciplines and auditorium settings with large groups of students. The pure lecture style is most suitable for subjects like history, which necessitate memorization of key facts, dates, names, etc.

Cons: It's a questionable model for teaching children because there is little or no interaction with the teacher. Plus it can get a little snooze-y. That's why it's a better approach for older, more mature students.

The Demonstrator, or coach style

The demonstrator retains the formal authority role by showing students what they need to know. The demonstrator is a lot like the lecturer, but their lessons include multimedia presentations, activities, and demonstrations. (Think: Math. Science. Music.)

Pros: This style gives teachers opportunities to incorporate a variety of formats including lectures and multimedia presentations.

Cons: Although it's well-suited for teaching mathematics, music, physical education, arts and crafts, it is difficult to accommodate students' individual needs in larger classrooms.

The Facilitator, or activity style

Facilitators promote self-learning and help students develop critical thinking skills and retain knowledge that leads to self-actualization.

Pros: This style trains students to ask questions and helps develop skills to find answers and solutions through exploration; it is ideal for teaching science and similar subjects.

Cons: Challenges teacher to interact with students and prompt them toward discovery rather than lecturing facts and testing knowledge through memorization. So it's a bit harder to measure success in tangible terms.

The Delegator, or group style

The delegator style is best suited for curriculum that requires lab activities, such as chemistry and biology, or subjects that warrant peer feedback, like debate and creative writing.

Pros: Guided discovery and inquiry-based learning places the teacher in an observer role that inspires students by working in tandem toward common goals.

Cons: Considered a modern style of teaching, it is sometimes criticized as eroding teacher authority. As a delegator, the teacher acts more as a consultant rather than the traditional authority figure.

The Hybrid, or blended style

Hybrid, or blended style, follows an integrated approach to teaching that blends the teacher's personality and interests with students' needs and curriculum-appropriate methods.

Pros: Inclusive! And enables teachers to tailor their styles to student needs and appropriate subject matter.

Cons: Hybrid style runs the risk of trying to be too many things to all students, prompting teachers to spread themselves too thin and dilute learning.

Because teachers have styles that reflect their distinct personalities and curriculum-from math and science to English and history-it's crucial that they remain focused on their teaching objectives and avoid trying to be all things to all students.

What you need to know about your teaching style

Although it is not the teacher's job to entertain students, it is vital to engage them in the learning process. Selecting a style that addresses the needs of diverse students at different learning levels begins with a personal inventory-a self-evaluation-of the teacher's strengths and weaknesses. As they develop their teaching styles and integrate them with effective classroom management skills, teachers will learn what works best for their personalities and curriculum.

Our guide encapsulates today's different teaching styles and helps teachers identify the style that's right for them and their students. Browse through the article or use these links to jump to your desired destination.

Emergence of the teaching style inventory

How have teaching styles evolved? This is a question teachers are asked, and frequently ask themselves, as they embark on their careers, and occasionally pause along the way to reflect on job performance. To understand the differences in teaching styles, it's helpful to know where the modern concept of classifying teaching methods originated.

The late Anthony F. Grasha, a noted professor of psychology at the University of Cincinnati, is credited with developing the classic five teaching styles. A follower of psychiatrist Carl Jung, Grasha began studying the dynamics of the relationship between teachers and learning in college classrooms. His groundbreaking book, "Teaching with Style," was written both as a guide for teachers and as a tool to help colleagues, administrators and students systematically evaluate an instructor's effectiveness in the classroom.

Grasha understood that schools must use a consistent, formal approach in evaluating a teacher's classroom performance. He recognized that any system designed to help teachers improve their instructional skills requires a simple classification system. He developed a teaching style inventory that has since been adopted and modified by followers.

Expert: Similar to a coach, experts share knowledge, demonstrate their expertise, advise students and provide feedback to improve understanding and promote learning.

Formal authority: Authoritative teachers incorporate the traditional lecture format and share many of the same characteristics as experts, but with less student interaction.

Personal model: Incorporates blended teaching styles that match the best techniques with the appropriate learning scenarios and students in an adaptive format.

Facilitator: Designs participatory learning activities and manages classroom projects while providing information and offering feedback to facilitate critical thinking.

Delegator: Organizes group learning, observes students, provides consultation, and promotes interaction between groups and among individuals to achieve learning objectives.

Although he developed specific teaching styles, Grasha warned against boxing teachers into a single category. Instead, he advocated that teachers play multiple roles in the classroom. He believed most teachers possess some combination of all or most of the classic teaching styles.

How does differentiated instruction affect teaching styles?

Carol Ann Tomlinson, a professor at the University of Virginia, is an early advocate of differentiated instruction and a pioneer in the development of learning-based teaching styles. If Grasha laid the groundwork for 20th-century teachers to adopt styles tailored to match their personalities and strengths, Tomlinson has advanced this theme into the 21st century by focusing on differentiated instruction.

In the simplest terms, differentiated instruction means keeping all students in mind when developing lesson plans and workbook exercises, lectures and interactive learning. These student-focused differences necessitate instructional styles that embrace diverse classrooms for students at all learning levels and from various backgrounds without compromising the teacher's strengths.

What teaching style is best for today's students?

Whether you're a first-year teacher eager to put into practice all of the pedagogical techniques you learned in college, or a classroom veteran examining differentiated instruction and new learning methodologies, consider that not all students respond well to one particular style. Although teaching styles have been categorized into five groups, today's ideal teaching style is not an either/or proposition but more of a hybrid approach that blends the best of everything a teacher has to offer.

The traditional advice that teachers not overreach with a cluster of all-encompassing teaching styles might seem to conflict with today's emphasis on student-centered classrooms. Theoretically, the more teachers emphasize student-centric learning the harder it is to develop a well-focused style based on their personal attributes, strengths and goals.

In short, modern methods of teaching require different types of teachers-from the analyst/organizer to the negotiator/consultant. Here are some other factors to consider as teachers determine the best teaching method for their students.

Empty vessel: Critics of the "sage on the stage" lecture style point to the "empty vessel" theory, which assumes a student's mind is essentially empty and needs to be filled by the "expert" teacher. Critics of this traditional approach to teaching insist this teaching style is outmoded and needs to be updated for the diverse 21st-century classroom.

Active vs. passive: Proponents of the traditional lecture approach believe that an overemphasis on group-oriented participatory teaching styles, like facilitator and delegator, favor gifted and competitive students over passive children with varied learning abilities, thereby exacerbating the challenges of meeting the needs of all learners.

Knowledge vs. information: Knowledge implies a complete understanding, or full comprehension, of a particular subject. A blend of teaching styles that incorporate facilitator, delegator, demonstrator, and lecturer techniques helps the broadest range of students acquire in-depth knowledge and mastery of a given subject. This stands in contrast to passive learning, which typically entails memorizing facts, or information, with the short-term objective of scoring well on tests.

Interactive classrooms: Laptops and tablets, videoconferencing and podcasts in classrooms play a vital role in today's teaching styles. With technology in mind, it is imperative that teachers assess their students' knowledge while they are learning. The alternative is to wait for test results, only to discover knowledge gaps that should have been detected during the active learning phase.

Constructivist teaching methods: Contemporary teaching styles tend to be group focused and inquiry driven. Constructivist teaching methods embrace subsets of alternative teaching styles, including modeling, coaching, and test preparation through rubrics scaffolding. All of these are designed to promote student participation and necessitate a hybrid approach to teaching. One criticism of the constructivist approach is it caters to extroverted, group-oriented students, who tend to dominate and benefit from these teaching methods more than introverts; however, this assumes introverts aren't learning by observing.

Student-centric learning does not have to come at the expense of an instructor's preferred teaching method. However, differentiated instruction demands that teachers finesse their style to accommodate the diverse needs of 21st-century classrooms.

The 'sage on the stage' meets the 'tiger mom'

The objective of blending teaching styles to leverage the teacher's strengths while meeting the demands of diverse students has become increasingly difficult, as parents take a decidedly proactive role in child-learning techniques.

The traditional authoritative/expert, or "sage on the stage" lecture style, has come under attack by some parents-and contemporary educational leaders-who emphasize that a more diverse approach to teaching is necessary to engage students. This is compounded by the rise of "tiger moms," a term made popular by parents devoted to improving the quality of education with laser-precision focus on A-list schools and a highly competitive job market.

Age of the proactive parent

Regardless of what style a teacher adopts, it's important for teachers to develop positive attitudes, set goals and establish high expectations for students.

"Assume students can excel!" education authors Harry and Rosemary Wong declare. As former teachers with a combined 80-plus years of educational experience, the Wongs emphasize in their best-selling book, "The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher" and their more recent, "The Classroom Management Book" that successful teachers share three common characteristics:

effective classroom management skills

lesson mastery

positive expectations

All instructors, when developing their teaching styles, should keep in mind these three goals, as well as the primary objective of education: student learning.

How does classroom diversity influence teachers?

It is abundantly clear that today's teachers are responsible for students with a diverse range of learning abilities. The 21st-century teacher does not have the luxury of "picking the low-hanging fruit" and then leaving the rest of the tree for experts who specialize in children with behavioral issues or learning disorders.

Today's teachers must develop instructional styles that work well in diverse classrooms. Effective teaching methods engage gifted students, as well as slow-learning children and those with attention deficit tendencies. This is where differentiated instruction and a balanced mix of teaching styles can help reach all students in a given classroom-not just the few who respond well to one particular style of teaching.

The wonderment of teaching, what author/educator Dr. Harry Wong refers to as "that ah-ha moment" when a child "gets it," is one of the most rewarding and seemingly elusive benefits of becoming a teacher. This transfer of knowledge from expert to student is an art form and a skill. Fortunately, both can be learned and perfected.

Knowing how to engage students begins with selecting the teaching style that's right for you. And remember, even though you may prefer one teaching style over another, you must find the style that works best for your students! Try different styles to meet different objectives, and always challenge yourself to find ways to reach each student.

Learn More: Click to view related resources. Tags: Leadership and Administration, Mid-Career Teacher, New Teacher, Professional Development, Veteran Teacher

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teaching Styles: Different Teaching Methods & Strategies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Every teacher has her or his own style of teaching. And as traditional teaching styles evolve with the advent of differentiated instruction, more and more teachers are adjusting their approach depending on their students' learning needs. But there are a few fundamental teaching styles most educators tend to use.

# data[].attributes.body
I want my government and politics students to score well on the AP exam, but more importantly realize how to become good citizens and competent political actors

# data[].attributes.body
Students all have different learning styles but are subjects taught best in specific teaching formats?

# data[].attributes.body
Why do math and science students do less well in my AP Government class?