Acknowledging another face in the virtual crowd: Reimagining the online experience in higher education through an online pedagogy of care

Abstract

With the rapid expansion of online learning as a dominant pedagogical approach in higher education, significant research has been undertaken to explore the impacts of internet-based technologies to promote student engagement. Current advances in online learning have fostered innovative, and often nuanced approaches to teaching and learning that have the potential to promote rich and potentially transformative learning outcomes for higher education students. However, there is a growing body of evidence that clearly highlights that online learning may have a deleterious impact on a student's sense of connection, leading to experiences of isolation and disempowerment. Such experiences call for an ongoing reimagination of the online teaching space to ensure that students maintain a strong sense of identity within their virtual educational community. This paper emphasises an approach to online learning that serves to foster positive engagement across the student lifecycle. Using Noddings' (2010) framework of Moral Education, we engaged in the process of critical reflection on our own teaching over time, using student data to support analyses. Based upon the outcomes of this longitudinal process, we propose an online pedagogy of care: a teaching orientation that challenges the dominant, often reactively driven learning and teaching practices influenced by the commodification of higher education internationally.

Teaching Online in an Ethic of Hospitality: Lessons from a Pandemic

“…Different from Burke and Larmar ( 2020 ) who, based on Nodding’s ethics of care, claim that “an online pedagogy of care begins with relationships ” (p. 6, italics in the original), hospitable education is not focused on the relationship between self and Other but on the Other as Other. While it does begin with a social encounter, hospitality (and hospitable education) entails an immediate and responsible response to alterity–although that is not a synonym of being Other-centered.…”

“…For instance, convenience, flexibility and inclusion of diverse learners are often noted as characteristics that have greatly contributed to the increase demand for online education in the recent years. On the other hand, course quality, disempowerment, privacy and isolation are some of the challenges of online education commonly noted by research worldwide (e.g., Afrouz & Crisp 2021 ; Burke & Larmar 2020 ; Davis et al 2019 ; Reamer, 2013 ). For that reason, many studies emphasize that teacher social presence is essential to students’ engagement, satisfaction and learning in the online context (e.g., Raza et al 2020 ; Song et al 2019 ; Sung & Mayer 2012 ).…”

“…While email communications were already present before the pandemic, this being the only way in which students could reach out to professors outside of the classroom time raises the question of when and how often teachers should respond to students. Burke and Larmar ( 2020 ) and Jones ( 2015 ) note that it is necessary that teachers of online courses establish clear boundaries with students from the outset so that interactions can take place in a timely and supportive manner while respecting the realities of instructors’ own limitations. So, despite being potentially more sensitive to students’ needs, some professors in the present study also commented that they had also been seeking to respect their own well-being and “exercise boundaries to figure out work-life balance” (Brianna).…”

Developing Competencies for Emotional, Instrumental, and Informational Student Support During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Human Relations/Human Resource Development Approach

“…This is characterized by a desire to take actions that will benefit individuals or groups as demonstrated in my supportive response to students’ needs (see Lloyd-Jones & Byrd, 2018). Like Leininger (1991), other scholars provide deeper understanding for the role played by care for students in higher education who have had their educational experience impacted (Barab, 2003; Burke & Larmar, 2020; Gasser et al, 2018; Khlaisang & Songkram, 2019).…”

“…Because online learning, like the Zoom-centric option I provided for students in the courses featured, can have a “deleterious impact on a student’s sense of connection, leading to experiences of isolation and disempowerment,” consistent positive engagement and reflexive teaching practices, as aspects of pedagogical care, are morally imperative if instructors are to achieve transformative student outcomes (Burke & Larmar, 2020, p. 1). Gasser et al (2018) describe emotional instructor support as another way of describing care in a primary school example that can be applied in this case as it relates to positive reactions necessary to support human development in any learning contexts, but particularly where there are actual or perceived challenges or threats: COVID-19 being actual but within an unprecedented and widely unknown context.…”