Definition Empathy and human-centred design is starting from real people's needs and testing what you build with those same people.
Telling an AI's simulated empathy apart from the real thing is an explicit learning target of this skill.
Why it matters with AI
Chatbots produce a caring tone with ease, but a caring tone is not understanding. A design that never met a real user tends to fit the plausible user an AI made up.
How CIT teaches it: Interviews and an empathy map
Students interview at least three future users and draw an empathy map. They set a chatbot's 'empathetic' answer to the same questions beside the real interview answers and look for what differs.
What proficiency looks like at each age
- Elementary Asks a friend or family member three questions and sums up the answers in their own words.
- Middle school Turns one user need from the interview notes into a problem statement and revises the prototype on user feedback.
- High school Records assumptions apart from observations and explains, with evidence, how simulated AI personas differed from real users.
Four recorded levels
- 1 Emerging Does it when an adult walks through the steps.
- 2 Developing Does it alone on familiar tasks; needs support on new ones.
- 3 Proficient Shows the grade-band indicator on an unfamiliar task, unaided.
- 4 Extending Teaches it to others or carries it into a new field.
Where this skill is used in the CIT Loop
- 1. Empathize Hear what the people who will use it actually live with, before building anything.
Evidence
- ISTE (2016). ISTE Standards for Students. Seven student standards, including Innovative Designer and Computational Thinker.
Courses that train this skill
- AI and psychology (Mind Lab) · What is a feeling made of?
- Apps for real users · Who has this problem and why?
Related skills
C2 Creative IdeationC3 Builder AgencyC4 Integrative Thinking
First Principles Thinking: Every lesson opens with one first-principles question. Metacognition: Every lesson closes with a teach-back or a calibration check.