Riaz Zaidi, a graduate research assistant in the College of Education at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, stood by and observed a group of K-12 students from Girls’ Inc. as they performed a blindfolded exercise using the Empathy Toy Teacher’s Kit earlier this month in the Ed Collabitat.

Zaidi and Keith Miller, the Orthwein Endowed Professor for Lifelong Learning in the Sciences, have been working with students from Girls Inc. for six weeks during the summer each of the past four years. They give short lectures, conduct exercises and play games to help teach the students about science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

In the exercise Zaidi observed, two students from each group were blindfolded. One student with a finished toy would feel the toy and give instruction to the other blindfolded student with a disassembled toy on how to build it. The experience is intended to help students practice the skill of empathy and see how that helps the students improve universal learning skills, including critical thinking, creative dialogue, teamwork and collaboration, autonomous learning and making real-world connections.

This photograph was taken by UMSL photographer August Jennewein and is the latest to be featured in Eye on UMSL.