Listening with Understanding and Empathy
Listening with understanding and empathy will benefit my students inside and outside of the classroom in personal, professional, and academic settings. In general, when people are in groups and working collaboratively members can find it therapeutic to be listened to, draw energy from one another, and seek reciprocity (Costa & Kallick, 2009). Solving complex problems is often very difficult and cannot be completed by one person alone. Cooperative humans understand that collectively all of us together are more powerful, intellectually and/or physically, than any one individual (Costa & Kallick, 2000). Additionally, in today’s diverse society no one has access to all the data needed to make critical decisions; no one person can consider as many alternatives as several people can which is why need listening with understanding and empathy to cross lines of difference.
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I have seen my students demonstrate listening with understanding and empathy with limited success. Based on observations I have made inside and outside my classroom my students are still learning how to effectively communicate. They are developmentally very egocentric, so it is challenging for them to a) actively listen and b) to listen with understanding and empathy. In order to demonstrate mastery of the HOM, students must be able to listen to other people and deeply understand someone else’s feelings (Costa & Kallick, 2000). My students frequently speak over each other and cannot use someone else’s perspective; this has been very apparent in class discussions as well as problems my students have faced in their personal lives. In the last week, 31 students in 6th grade received a demerit for a classroom conflict and received after school peer mediation. To address this area of need I taught my students how to listen with understanding and empathy.
Direct Instruction
This lesson was developed because many of my students struggled to = communicate effectively. The largest reason behind their inability to communicate efficiently was their failure to listen. Middle school students developmentally are very egocentric, it requires practice to get students to begin to shift their perspective away from themselves. Direct instruction is a critical first step towards developing listening with understanding and empathy. Internalization of each HOM requires repeated exposure and use. This lesson gives my students the opportunity to practice the HOM in a safe and structured way. Students will first participate in a Do Now to activate prior knowledge about their previous experience with listening followed by a reflective journal entry. Students then engaged in a partner activity in which students take turns actively listening to each other. Having students use this HOM in my classroom will push them to internalize it and use it to solve problems that they face.
All of my students entered my classroom with an understanding of listening skills. However, very few students understood what empathy is. Students need to have an understanding of empathy if this HOM is expected to be used intelligently with fidelity. This PowerPoint provided my students with the foundational knowledge of active listening, listening skills, and empathy. The listening skills section of this presentation is important because it provides students with a plethora of ways they can become better listeners. This presentation has multiple turn and talks to ensure that active learning is happening and to help students begin to internalize the content.
I created this reflective journal to activate my students' prior knowledge and bring their previous experiences with listening and empathy into my classroom. One student described her experience with one of her best friends. She described what it felt like when listening with understanding and empathy is not done successfully. The next part of this lesson pushes my students to think deeper about their experience with this HOM by contextualizing it.
This activity was developed by Boyes & Watts (2010) and I used it in my classroom to help my students to cultivate their listening with understanding and empathy skills. This activity helps students develop a deep understanding of the HOM because it asks them to describe what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like. I was thoroughly impressed by my 6th-graders' savviness with listening and social ques. Each student was able to identify at least three skills they can use to be a better listener. A few students connected listening and being heard to validation. One student described a feeling of respect because he gets to help people who are in dark space. The next part of the lesson requires students to become active listeners and use the strategies that they described.
To help my students move past speaking about listening with understanding and empathy towards internalization I designed an activity to practice what using this HOM sounds like, feels like, and looks like in a safe environment. My students were asked to select a partner and take turns participating in a listening activity. Students were instructed to tell their partner about a recent struggle in their life for three minutes. Their partner was required to remain quiet for the entire three minutes; students did this activity for two rounds. In the first round partner A spoke while partner B listened and wrote down responses to what partner A was saying, to simulate a conversation. In the second round partner A spoke while partner B only listened. At the end of each round partner B tried to write down as much they as they could remember from the conversation. The final part of the activity asked students to compare and contrast their experiences.
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In this activity, I wanted students to experience the difference between listening with the intent to respond and active listening. These artifacts represent 3 different levels of responses. However, each student had one commonality, they were a better listener with better recall in the second round where they required to actively listen. Overall this activity was challenging for my 6th-graders who had never engaged in a talk activity like this one. Practicing this skill in my classroom gave my students the confidence to try this HOM outside my classroom and pushed them to internalize it.
Reinforcement
For internalization of HOM to happen the HOM must be first reinforced overtime. In my classroom, I reinforce HOM through anchor charts, discussions, and specific praise in the form of merits and student of the week.
This is a student-created anchor that hangs in the front of my classroom. Two 6th-graders used a laptop to find inspiration to create their poster. Additionally, as they created this anchor chart they further developed their understanding of this HOM. Their work is being used by other students to reinforce their understanding of listening with understanding and empathy. There a few strategies on this anchor chart that students can use in their daily life to be better listeners. This anchor chart increases my students' exposure to this HOM which makes them more likely to use the HOM.
This artifact is my student of the week award that I give to my students. Providing students with very specific praise is a proven way to reinforce a behavior. I provide my students with very specific praise by naming and awarding HOM when I observe them in my classroom. A recent example, one of my students was being comforted by another student. I gave that student a merit and said, "thank you for being there for your friend and validating her feelings, you get a merit for showing listening with understanding and empathy. I provide my students with praise through merits and student of the week. I give merits whenever I observe a HOM but for student of the week I track one specific HOM. This current week is persistence next week is finding humor. Using rewards to reinforce the behavior has led to an increase in use HOM and created excitement which made my students more invested in the development of HOM. Additionally, I have leveraged the HOM wall in my classroom by asking students to identify HOM in their classmates for merits.
Having a discussion was an excellent way to reinforce listening with understanding and empathy because the activity itself requires students to demonstrate the HOM. This discussion takes place in my 6th-grade advisory. My students are discussing what listening with understanding and empathy is, why its important, and how they can use it in their lives. This discussion is particularly powerful because students express how they feel when this HOM is demonstrated correctly and how they feel when this HOM is not demonstrated correctly. This activity shows how my students have internalized the HOM and use it in their daily lives. Press the play button below to hear our discussion on listening with understanding and empathy. The audio quality in the file below is intermittent, I have provided a transcript of the audio below each video link.
Transcript:
Teacher: Okay question number 1. Can I have someone talk about a time the opened up and vented to someone about an experience that happened to them?
Student 1: When me and my friends were walking to get something, and I told my friends about a family issue I was having. My friends were there for me.
Teacher: I’m glad you had a positive experience. Can someone tell me how do we know if someone is listening to us? How do we know they are engaged in what we are saying and that they are actively taking the information in?
Student 2: They don’t try to change the subject when we are speaking.
Teacher: I like that, they don’t try to change the subject.
Student 3: They look at me and they pay attention.
Teacher: Ah, yes eye contact is important.
Student 4: They give you advice.
Teacher: They give you advice, they are hearing what you are saying and saying maybe you should do this. Are there any other ways we can tell if someone is listening to us?
Student 5: You can ask them a question and see if they answer it right.
Teacher: You can ask them a question like: what did I just say or can you tell me what happened to see if they are listening to you.
Student 6: You can tell they are listening if their whole body is facing you.
Teacher: So more than just eye contact, you are looking at their body movements and language. I like that. How does it feel when someone you are speaking to is not listening to you? Someone I haven’t heard from today.
Student 7: I feel very upset when they are not listening to me.
Teacher: Yeah you feel upset you are not happy when that happens.
Student 8: I just feel like it’s a waste of time.
Student 9: It’s like you are talking to yourself.
Teacher: I like that, I agree it’s like talking to yourself.
Student 10: I would get mad and start cussing.
Student 3: When they tell you their problems and you say thank you for telling me that. But when you tell them your problems, they ignore you.
Teacher: Ah, he is saying that it is not reciprocal. When people tell him their problems he is there for them and actively listening but when the tables are flipped they are not there for him the same way that he was there for them. I have one more question. How can we be a better listener? What can we do to show our friends that we are there and we are listening?
Student 2: To pay attention to them, give them advice, make eye contact with them, make them feel better and tell them you care about them before you say goodbye.
Teacher: She brought up big points.
Student 11: To be as supportive as you can.
Teacher: I want to hear from two to three more students.
Student 12: Do not judge them.
Teacher: Yes, do not judge them. You are only there to support them and be there for them.
Student 13: You can show them your listening by not playing with your hands.
Teacher: Yes, not fidgeting with your hands is important. It can be distracting when someone is twitching, it is better when they are focused on you and you are the only thing that you are focused on.
Student 14: By not comparing experiences.
Teacher: Oh, I really like that one. You are there to hear their experience. You are not there to say, “at least this didn’t happen to you” that is not validating them. Clap once if you can hear me. Clap twice if you can hear me.
Student 6: How you look at other people matters.
Teacher: That’s an important point, the kind of eye contact you make with each other matters.
Final comments? Anyone else want to share out ways that we can actively listen?
In this discussion, my students described a time when they experienced a friend who listened and understood with empathy. My students went on to discuss how it feels when they are venting to a friend who is not actively listening. I then pushed students to think about different strategies they can use to show a peer that they are engaged and actively listening. In this discussion, it is evident that some of my students have internalized the HOM and it has led to their personal growth. The personal growth my students experience while developing this HOM has strengthened their relationships with friends, families, and teachers.
To further reinforce this HOM I have created a goal. My SMART goal for listening with understanding and empathy is to have all of my periods participate in an effective discussion. This will be measured through equity of voice; every student should speak at least one time. Additionally, my goal is to reduce interruptions/speaking over each other to less than five occurrences per period. This goal will take practice and it will be evaluated over the course of three discussions, one per week. To help my students develop this HOM I will rely on group projects. I will match pair groups to promote peer to peer tutoring and collaboration. Students will be graded on two criteria. The first criterion is based on the quality of their project and the second criterion was their ability to work together as a group effectively. Once students successfully demonstrate they can listen with understanding empathy will have an effective discussion and solve complex problems together as a diverse group of people.
Internalization
Internalization is of the deepest forms of learning. Internalization requires an enduring understanding of a topic. For HOM specifically, internalization is best observed through one's ability to intelligently use HOM to solve problems when the solution is not immediately known (Costa & Kallick, 2009). In my students' reflection, I asked them to identify what managing impulsivity is and how they use it in their lives. I wanted my students to provide examples of how they use the HOM inside and outside the classroom to illustrate their ability to use the HOM in a variety of situations because that demonstrates internalization.
These reflections demonstrate how my students have internalized listening with understanding and empathy into their daily lives. Each provided examples of appropriate scenarios to use the HOM and provide an example from their own life when they implemented the HOM. For the first student the outcome of her using this HOM was positive, being a better listener helped her develop a better relationship with her dad. For the second student having a friend who used this HOM was the first time, she felt like someone listened and understood her. The third student demonstrated empathy and understanding by supporting her friend through relationship problems. Each of these situations occurred outside of the classroom which illustrates that students have internalized the HOM and applied it intelligently to various problems.
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At the beginning of the school year, my students had a limited ability to use the HOM listening with understanding and empathy. My students frequently spoke over each other and had difficulty see things from someone else’s perspective. To foster growth in this area, I introduced them to HOM through direct instruction. Over the course of the school year, my students have engaged in reinforcement activities such as anchor charts, student of the week, and discussions. As the HOM became reinforced my students did more than just talk about listening with understanding and empathy they were using it to drive their personal growth. As students learned how to actively listen to each other behavior in my classroom began to shift. My students became more cohesive as a class, they were better able to communicate with each other, and they learned how to examine situations from someone's perspective.
References
Boyes, K., & Watts, G. (2009). Developing Habits of Mind in elementary schools. Retrieved
from http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/books/boyesAT2009_exploring_the_meaning
_of_habits_of_mind_with_teachers.pdf
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Costa, A. L., & Kallick, B. (2000). Describing 16 Habits of Mind. Retrieved from
http://www.habitsofmind.org/sites/default/files/16HOM2.pdf
Costa, A. L., & Kallick, B. (Eds.). (2009). Habits of Mind across the curriculum: Practical and
creative strategies for teachers. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development.