Compassion and Care in Curriculum

The other day I came across this blog post by George Veletsianos (the Canada Research Chair in Innovative Learning and Technology) in which he talked about his thoughts about how we should be including "compassion, kindness, and care" in digital learning.   He writes that he is no talking about overtly teaching compassion, etc, rather,  "I’m more concerned here with how to embed compassion in our practice – in our teaching, in our learning design processes, the technologies that we create." He goes on to list several questions he is thinking about. After over 35 years as an educator, I firmly believe that relationships are vital to meaningful learning. This was/is true in any level in K-12 and in higher ed, and in any role. I have been a classroom teacher, an ICT leader, and a school administrator, and now a teacher educator. George's questions are interesting to contemplate. How can we include compassion in our course design? As I begin to think about my course syllabi for next year, it is something I will have to think about. The work of Noddings can be useful in thinking about this as well. Noddings (2012) wrote: "A climate in which caring relations can flourish should be a goal for all teachers and educational policymakers. In such a climate, we can best meet individual needs, impart knowledge, and encourage the development of moral people."  With the world in its current state - from the hatred we see between people not even known to each other, to the often disgusting online commentary on every topic under the sun, a little bit of compassion, care, and empathy would go a long way. 

Perhaps we need to embed a pedagogy of care and compassion in our work as educators? 

Reference
Noddings, N. (2012). The caring relation in teaching. Oxford Review of Education, 38(6), 771-781.

A Journey Completed ... Another Continues

about to begin the defense

I am very pleased to announce that on June 27, 2014, I successfully defended my Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Manitoba. I have many people to thank for their support and assistance along the way, most of all my advisor, Dr. O. Cap, my committee, Dr. M. Atleo, Dr. D. Hlynka, Dr. D. Mann and external, Dr. K. King. Having Dr. King as external was exciting since she has written so much about transformative learning and technology so her input was meaningful and impacted the final product. Others were also important (my wife & family to be sure!), but also several colleagues at BU and my cohort friends throughout the program. I will leave a reflection of the entire process for another post, however, I will include the slides I used in the defense, and the abstract. A link to the final dissertation will be added once it clears the submission system at the UM. For now ... I am done! Mike Nantais, Ph.D. - who would have guessed?

Ph.D. Oral Defense presentation from Mike Nantais

Social Media Pedagogy: A Multiple Case Study Approach (abstract) by mnantais