Wednesday, January 28, 2009

AWNM 2 Empathy



Dan Maas: Dan is the Chief Information Officer for Littleton Public Schools as well as a parent of a LPS student.

Lee Kolbert is the mother of two boys (18 & 15) and has 25 years experience as an educator (mostly elementary) and is currently a district administrator who helps teachers successfully integrate technology in their lessons. Lee introduces reluctant teachers to Web 2.0 tools at every opportunity as it seems those are the keys to motivating teachers to try new things. Lee also has a regular Web 2.0 Site of The Week segment on a local TV show called PalmBreeze CAFE(CAFE = Convenient And Flexible Education) which is also linked on YouTube. Lee is VERY excited to be a part of this project.

27 comments:

robertc2012 said...

I thought that today was an interesting fishbowl. Empathy is definately a harder sense to discuss than all the others we have gotten to so far, and also the most debatable sense. I discovered that we all have different opinions about certain aspects of empathy, and also that there's not necessarily a right or wrong answer to. I also learned a bit about myself and what I thought empathy meant during the discussion. Overall it was a challenging and interesting fishbowl.

alisonr2012 said...

The fishbowl was interesting. I think we focused more on one thing and didn't really expand the discussion as we could have. As Robert said it was the most debatable sense. Since it was the most debatable sense we could have expanded our discussion farther. I thought that more people moved from the outer circle to the inner circle but I could be wrong. This fishbowl helped me understand more about empathy but it also has me thinking about how often people fake empathy and if people always fake empathy or if they are truly being empathetic. This fishbowl was more challenging and I think we could have been a little more prepared but otherwise I think we did a good job.

stephaniel2012 said...

Empathy was a great discussion for me, I really got into it and I enjoyed it a lot. I think that a lot of thought spurring ideas were brought up and ultimately made me leave the fishbowl thinking about the points that were made. I think that any time that that is done, that it is a good fishbowl. AMAZING.

ericak2012 said...

I liked this fishbowl a lot. We were able to talk about a ton of different subjects having to do with empathy. We all had different views on different parts of empathy, causing many discussions on both the inner and outter circle. We never had a moment that there wasn't a good discussion going on.

stellab2012 said...

I think the fishbowl could have gone better. The inner circle started out really slow but once we started speeding up, we just went in circles, repeating most of what we had already discussed. I didn't think that we really took the discussion as far as we could have. I thought a lot of us were prepared with questions, we just weren't as prepared with answers.
I was also a part of the outer circle a little bit and I thought that conversation was carrying on very well, but it would have been great to have more people join the inner circle.

KyleL2012 said...

I thought that this fish bowl was....kind of different from the others. It seemed a little dry with question provision, but then we really beat the questions to a pulp with answering them (if that makes any sense). I attempted to swirl questions around, but most of them made no sense..... It was different than the others, but that's mostly all I can say

Carolyn F. said...

I thought that yesterday was an alright fishbowl. I think that it was a difficult sense as we got empathy and sympathy confused. I think we could've expanded the discussion and reach a higher potential. I did think that we did a good job connecting things to empathy and realizing what empathy was.

PeterH2012 said...

Yesterdays fishbowl has been like many of our others. The outer circle did a fairly good job of coming to the innercircle, and the innercircle kept the discussion going well. We did however, stay focused on one topic instead of branching out like we usually do. I think if we are all more open to the topic, then we will continue to go off on more tangents.

chelseac2012 said...

I enjoyed this fishbowl, I think it was really fun to be able to debate on the sense empathy. The fishbowl really got me thinking about empathy and that the people around me could be faking it, but before I never thought about people faking empathy. The fishbowl was a little challenging to debate on it too. Overall it was a good fishbowl.

kaleidoscope_eyes said...

This conversation branched off into a lot of different ones, but it some how avoided being off topic. We kindof backtracked into the whole "do animals have souls" argument, but I think we took it to another place. Empathy is really hard to isolate from sympathy, but i think we did a really good job. Over all this fishbowl: awesome!

jays2012 said...

This fishbowl on empathy was a fun fishbowl because it wasn't really a one sided agrument. We really only focused on sadnenss and pain and I think that we should of expanded our thoughts to make it all of our emotions. I didn't really pay much attention to the outer circle blogging, but I thought that the inner circle did a good job and it was a good experience.

Brianc2012 said...

I think this fishbowl went pretty well because empathy is a harder subject to discuss. I think that in the outer circle they had good discussions about different aspects of empathy. The inner circle started out a little slow, but we started up with good questions and discussion. People deffinitly had a lot of different debates in it.

sammiet2012 said...

I would have to agree with Alison when she said, "The fishbowl was interesting." because I felt that any time we hit a ruff spot on the inner circle we went back to a topic that we had already talked about instead of changing the topic. Otherwise I think that the fishbowl went well.

Maxe2012 said...

I thought that the inner circle discussed some good topics. However, we didn't have enough to talk about and there were a few silent periods. I couldn't pay too much attention to the outer circle but when I did, they were discussing some pretty decent topics. I think that empathy was a little bit harder because there are a lot of differing beliefs on what it is. I think that our fishbowl went well but could have gone better.

AustinW2012 said...

This fishbowl went pretty well. It was very different for me because the last few fishbowls I have been in the outer circle so it was odd at first. One thing that I really like was the ideas that the guests in the outer circle brought up. I'm very glad they could participate because they helped me to understand this sense better. One misconception I had about it tat was cleared up was the fact that empathy and sympathy are related but still two different things. Empathy is not only feeling sorry for someone but feeling any of their emotions. In the outer circle the conversation went very well with multiple topics going at a time. The inner circle also flowed very well and had eliminated the random pauses. I think this fishbowl however only fell under the average category. I also think that it shouldn't be hard to get back to our previous level next time.

BernardoT2012 said...

I thought the fischbowl was very insightful. I think that it helped understand exactly what empathy is, and if it can be faked. We really applied empathy to more real life situations. I think the inner circle seemed to relate to empathy more than we have with the other senses.

There's irony for you.

john c said...

I thnk that the fishbowl went fairly well yesterday. I do agree with Robert though in that, at least the parts that I heard, we didn't seem to expand many ways. But, the ideas and places we went to were well discussed. I think that the outer circle did well of coming in to the inner circle, a lot better than most other times. I also think that the discussion on the blog went smoothly and we covered a lot of ground. Overall, I think it was good. I wanted to thank Dan Maas and Lee Kolbert for coming in and/or listening to our conversation.

Thanks

John C.

bayleyk2012 said...

I felt that the fishbowl yesterday was one of the more interesting one's. The outer circle was very diverse and I am really thankful to Lee and Dan for helping to create more conversations. People had really different perspectives on empathy. It helped to be able to see what other people are thinking about. A lot of people moved in and out of the outer circle. But I felt that certain people were monopolizing the conversation. It was alright but we have done better.

nickb2012 said...

I think the empathy fishbowl went well, there was alot more participation in the outer circle, even if the topcs were limited, we kept going back to the same thing, the appearence, versus the reality. It was also the most debatable sense, as robert said. Also, it was interesting to see the people that thought empathy is one level, and its not empathy until that level.

ashleys2012 said...

The fishbowl yesterday was just average in my opinion. It wasn’t our worst but it wasn’t our best. For a while, it seemed the inner circle was stuck on one topic and didn’t expand. I had a great conversation in the outer circle. Some really valid points were brought up in the outer circle. Some of these points could have and should have been brought into the inner circle to discuss. Some outer circle people did a good job coming into the inner circle but more need to follow their example. Next fishbowl, I will defiantly walk into the inner circle more.

alexandriab2012 said...

I thought that the fishbowl went really well, empathy is not an easy thing to talk about because in order to talk about it you must have experience of empathy. I think we talked a lot on a hard tpoic however, I think that we got stuck on a topic. Next time we need to have a monator to make sure that none gets stuck on just on topic, better yet why don't we all just be are own monator.

Anonymous said...

This was definitely one of our harder fishbowls. We had a good conversation sometimes, but other times there were awkward silences. However, when we were talking, there were some great points made. We still never made it clear, but what is the line that draws Empathy from Sympathy? In my opinion (I thought of this after the fischbowl, of course...) Empathy is like a Symphonic version of Sympathy. You need to see the patterns in someone's face and body expressions, and know what they are feeling, then connect what they are feeling to a time you felt that way, looked the same and acted the same. Empathy and Symphony have a big connection in this way.





Also, during the Symphony fischbowl, we all seemed so passionate about changing education. Laura was at the board, scribing our ideas. I've set up a blog post about changing education, where we can organize our ideas and get ready to move. Then why, I ask you all, are there only seven comments? From three people? Not many people are participating, which horrifies me. Anyone who saw that fischbowl would have thought that we would have jumped onto this idea and taken it away. WE have blown away Daniel H. Pink, speech writer for Al Gore and author of a best-selling book. WE have already changed so much. WE are being watched by the world. WE need to step up! WE need to change! None of you could look me in the eye and tell me that that conversation was just for talking. I don't mean to say all of you are bad people, but even just contributing an idea or something is a great way. Doing nothing is giving up. Please don't give up, especially now. Changing education for our generation and the rest to come is a wonderful way to change the world. Here's the link for the blog...

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8869803182933929867&postID=3621304463766133510

Austin Davis said...

I thoght the fishbowl went well. The outer and inner circle worked together and the topics covered were broad within itself. We discussed the emotions that were part of empathy. We still need more people going into the inner circle.

katieh2012 said...

i think the fishbowl was not our strongest. We had some good ideas, but we just seemed unable to get anywhere with those ideas. We got stuck in one frame of mind, and didn't seem to change any perspectives or ideas. I think that some of the outter circle did a good job of coming in and participating, but some of the comments didn't really benefit the conversation too much. From what i could see, the blog had some good discussion. I think that preperation could be better...

mariep2012 said...

The fishbowl went really well yesterday. In the inner circle, we came prepared with a lot of questions and they were answered, for the most part. I felt that the topics discussed were insightful and needed to be discussed, but we kept coming back to the same ideas and not really breaking it down. I think that next time we need to keep the discussion going and try not to say too many times, "going back to what he said..."

connorm said...

I think that the fishbowl was pretty decent but I greatly dislike the format we use to discuss. I think that there are a lot of good ideas discussed but when do we ever bring them out of the session. who can actually say that they remember what we discussed. I think that we should change the way we discuss and then have a more in depth reflection period.

AllisonM2012 said...

I thought that the fishbowl that we had yesterday was decently successful. Although the inner circle was quite slow at the beginning, it really started to pick up and some very nice points were made. I did feel like some people might have stayed in the inner circle too long or did not go in at all. Another thing that happened in the inner circle that was good was that everyone made multiple comments and interacted in the conversation. Finally, I really liked the use of the pictures on the blog.