Teaching with Compassion: Autoethnographies from the front lines of e-learning

Abstract

In 2020 the landscape of teaching in higher education was forced to change given a global pandemic. As a result there were/are inevitable shifts in how course instructors develop and deliver their courses, as well as how they connect with students. Remote, or distance, learning is not a new phenomenon, and e-learning has been delivered across different institutions of higher education for approximately twenty years. However, scholarship in distance learning is dated and the empirical literature in digital pedagogy has gaps when it comes to best practices for teaching and learning in an online format. This paper highlights the importance of teaching with compassion as it fosters better relationships between instructors and students and helps to build community in learning environments. Relationships facilitate learning, and this is especially important in strained times - such as a higher concentration of online teaching and learning due to a pandemic. The notion of compassionate teaching is described. Using self ethnography and drawing on examples from their own course experiences, the authors present what has worked well in delivering small and large courses online. In particular, the first half of the paper focuses on backward course design, multimedia, accessibility, and forward/backward extensions. The latter half of the paper describes strategies embedded in a course and their positive effects for instructors and learners.