The Empathy Map as an Early Learning Design Activity

Topic 4 for the ONL191 course focuses on how to support and design for learning, with a particular emphasis on accounting for emotional presence (in the context of the Community of Inquiry framework) in learning design. My problem based learning group decided to focus on an Empathy Map learning design exercise that would be used early in the design process. This exercise, taken from the Extend Ontario materials, helps to empathise with, and better understand, the learner for whom we are designing a learning experience. It is, perhaps, an exercise better suited to those scenarios where you are working on something that students are already encountering/using so that you can base the map on formal and informal feedback you already have. If you are working on something brand new then mocking up personas may be a more effective way to go (for examples see Grainne Conole’s augmented 7Cs), or at least mock up your personas first before using the empathy map. Here are some examples of my groups early attempts at using the empathy map.