I was invited by a couple of colleagues from BYU’s College of Religious Education to work with them on this paper. They were designing the online and blended course referred to throughout the article, that they were intentionally trying to model on the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Buber. They were doing some exciting things. My part of the project was to provide discussion of from my field’s literature and draw out some theoretical implications of the practical work they were engaging in. I think it’s a nice piece with some thoughtful conclusions.
Abstract:
Online and blended learning (OBL) overemphasize the process of creating artifacts, producing strategies, or otherwise utilizing a “making” orientation in education. As an alternative to this making-orientation, we offer a model for relational course design founded in the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Buber. We examine an OBL course design focused on interfaith leadership and ethics that lends itself to the need for relational pedagogy. The focus on asymmetrical and symmetrical relationships that separate Levinas and Buber’s philosophies enable rich ways of designing relational pedagogies and for resisting the making orientation. By focusing on human relationships, we demonstrate design principles through “philosophies of difference” that can be used in OBL.
Reference:
MacKay, M. H., McDonald, J. K., & Reed, A. C. (2025). Designing for relational ethics in online and blended learning: Levinas, Buber, and teaching interfaith ethics. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 44(1), 85-107. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-024-09971-2
