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 Nell Noddings’ framework of Moral Education, we engaged in the process of critical reflection on our own teaching over time, using student data to support analyses.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• online learning
• e-learning
• online pedagogy
• care in education
• student experience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katie Burke

Katie Burke is an Arts Curriculum and Pedagogy lecturer within the Teacher Education programme at the University of Southern Queensland, where she has extensive experience with facilitating online learning since 2006. Her expertise in bringing innovation and transformation to the online student experience has resulted in the receipt of three university awards for online pedagogy, and invitations to share her practice through professional development and conference sessions in the tertiary, primary and secondary sectors. Katie is currently researching how to enhance the facilitation of embodied and praxial domains of learning in the arts through online modes in both tertiary and primary/secondary school education.

Stephen Larmar is a Senior Lecturer with the School of Human Services and Social Work, Griffith University. For the past seventeen years at Griffith, he has lectured primarily in the areas of counselling, introductory psychology and professional ethics. He is a qualified counsellor and psychotherapist and over the last seventeen years has consulted in an advisory capacity for a range of organisations focussing on training and development in counselling and working with children and families. In 2011 Dr Larmar was awarded a National university teaching award in recognition for his teaching excellence in a range of disciplines including counselling, psychology and social work.