Rethinking the phenomenological meaningfulness of bodily presence and absence in online education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31874/2309-1606-2024-30-2-7Keywords:
online presence, absence, embodiment, Merleau-Ponty, phenomenologyAbstract
Online education was once considered a convenient and flexible educational channel. However, COVID-19 forced most teachers and students to have no other option but to move lessons online. Academic publications on online presence can be categorised into two independent fields: theoretical discussions and practical frameworks for improving online presence. Among these publications, some authors are holding pessimistic attitudes towards the idea of online presence. Some of them, following Heideggerian Gelassenheit, argue that online education is more or less a result of participants’ exhibition of controlled and judgemental performances due to its disembodiment, which freezes the reality and is devoted to calculative thinking. Others, following the Levinasian phenomenology of the face, claim that online education, with the screen as the barrier, jeopardises the embodied sensitivity and responsiveness of teachers’ ethical attuning to students. To negotiate with these authors, we would like to remind them of its possibility. Therefore, we draw on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodiment to introduce an opinion confirming online presence in education. We then point out the danger of reducing learning to the state of being present in classes, whether bodily or virtually, by inviting readers to rethink “absence” as a concealed side of presence and to confirm the roles of absence and presence in co-constructing a person’s perception of things. We thus emphasise the importance of teachers’ and students’ intentionality to teach or to learn, which determines the effects of online education. Finally, this study concludes with a post-digital view that beckons us to transcend the current debate of teaching online or offline, recognising a blurred boundary between the virtual and bricks-and-mortar modes of education.
References
Almahasees, Z., Mohsen, K., & Amin, M. O. (2021). Faculty’s and students’ perceptions of online learning during COVID-19. Frontiers in Education, 6, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.638470
Berenpas, M. (2021). On facing one’s students: The relevance of Emmanuel Levinas to teaching in times of COVID-19. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 55(4-5), 649–664. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12576
Biesta, G. J. J. (2013). The Beautiful Risk of Education. Boulder, the US: Paradigm Publisher.
Bhatt, I. (2023). Postdigital Literacies. In: Jandric, P. (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Postdigital Sci¬ence and Education. (Pp. 1–4). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_15-1
Chew, Y. W. (2022). Performing Presence with the Teaching-Body via Videoconferencing: A Postdigital Study of the Teacher’s Face and Voice. Postdigital Science and Educa¬tion, 4(2), 394–421. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00288-2
Coonfield, G. & Rose, H. (2012). What is Called Presence. Text and Performance Quarterly, 32(3), 192-208. https://doi.org/10.1080/10462937.2012.691309
du Toit, J. (2020). Living in the age of the embodied screen. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 20(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1080/20797222.2021.1876895
Fawns, T. (2019). Postdigital Education in Design and Practice. Postdigital Science and Education, 1(1), 132–145. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-018-0021-8
Fawns, T., Aitken, G. & Jones, D. (2019). Online Learning as Embodied, Socially Meaningful Experience. Postdigital Science and Education, 1(2), 293–297. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-019-00048-9
Gallagher, S. (2014). In Your face: transcendence in embodied interaction. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 495. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00495
Garrison, D. R. (2003). Cognitive presence for effective asynchronous online learning: The role of reflective inquiry, self-direction and metacognition. Elements of quality online education: Practice and direction, 4(1), 47–58.
Garrison, D. R., & Arbaugh, J. B. (2007). Researching the community of inquiry framework: Review, issues, and future directions. The Internet and higher education, 10(3), 157–172.
Heidegger, M. (1966). Discourse on Thinking. Trans. from German by J. M. Anderson and E. H. Freund. New York: Harper & Row.
Heidegger, M.(1977). The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Trans. from German by W. Lovitt. New York: Garland Publishing INC.
Heidegger, M. (2002). Off the Beaten Track. Trans. from German by J. Young and K. Haynes. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Kostenius, C., & Alerby, E. (2020). Room for interpersonal relationships in online educa¬tional spaces – a philosophical discussion. International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being, 15(sup1), 1689603. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482631.2019.1689603
Levinas, E. (1985). Ethics and Infinity. Trans. from French by R. A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Li, Y. (2023). An Instrumental Case Study of the Online Learning Experience of Macau University Students During Covid-19: What Kind of Online Presence Matters? Sage Open, 13(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440231217666
Lowenthal, P. R., & Dunlap, J. C. (2020). Social presence and online discussions: A mixed method investigation. Distance Education, 41(4), 490–514. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2020.1821603
Merleau-Ponty, M. (2004). The World of Perception. Trans. from French by O. Davis. Abingdon, England: Routledge.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1973). The Prose of the World. Trans. from French by J. O’Neill. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (2019). The Film and the New Psychology. In C. Kul-Want (ed.). Philosophers on Film from Bergson to Badiou: A Critical Reader. (Pp. 97–112). New York: Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/kul-17602-006
Parrish, C. W., Guffey, S. K., Williams, D. S., Estis, J. M., & Lewis, D. (2021). Fostering Cognitive Presence, Social Presence and Teaching Presence with Integrated Online – Team-Based Learning. TechTrends, 65(4), 473–484. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-021-00598-5
Primozic, D. H. (2001). On Merleau-Ponty. Australia: Wadsworth.
Shao, Y. (2021). Alternative Experiences of Online Courses: An Investigation of Online Learning Experience of Undergraduate Students in Macao during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Macau Studies, 3, 102–113.
Siah, C. R., Huang, C. M., Poon, Y. S. R., & Koh, S. S. (2022). Nursing students’ perceptions of online learning and its impact on knowledge level. Nurse Education Today, 112(3), 105327. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2022.105327
Sokolowski, R. (2000). Introduction to Phenomenology. Washington DC: Cambridge University Press.
Ucok-Sayrak, O., & Brazelton, N. (2022). Regarding the question of presence in online education: A performative pedagogical perspective. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 54(2), 131–144. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2021.1880389
Van Wig, A., Yang, S., Bahlmann Bollinger, C., Chen, X., Karkar-Esperat, T., Pole, K., & Wilson, N. (2022). ‘Simplicity is key’: Literacy graduate students’ perceptions of online learning. Online Learning, 26(1), 203–220. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v26i1.2607
Zahavi, D. (2003). Husserl’s Phenomenology. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.
Zizka, L., & Probst, G. (2023). Learning during (or despite) COVID-19: Business students’ perceptions of online learning. Quality Assurance in Education, 31, 60–73. https://doi.org/10.1108/QAE-12-2021-0188
Downloads
-
PDF
Downloads: 72
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
- Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication;
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
