Problem-Based Design Thinking Tasks: Engaging Student Empathy in STEM

Abstract

This study examines the interaction between students' expressions of empathy and the use of STEM integration in the science classroom. Third space theory provides the context from which this classroom ethnographic qualitative study took place, as it provided an environment in which discourse among students' sociocultural perspectives, life experiences, and academic backgrounds could develop and interact. Nineteen seventh-grade students from a Title 1 school, a school that receives federal aid to better support students coming from low-income families, in the Southeast United States participated in this study. Participants generated their own real-world problem-based design-thinking (PBDT) tasks to address and solve. Students exhibited significant characteristics of empathy and integration of various STEM content and practices evidenced by in-class discussions, field-notes observations, student artifacts, and individual student interviews as part of the STEM Third Space Genius Hour sessions. The PBDT Framework, inspired by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) learning cycle and design thinking (DT), provides the conceptual lens through which to view the connectedness among students' PBDT tasks, STEM, and empathy.