Illustration of St. Ignatius with laptop - Seattle in background

At the beginning of CDLI's Course Design program, we ask faculty to share their fears about teaching online. The biggest fear is always that they will feel disconnected from their students. This isn’t surprising. Seattle University prides itself on providing a high-touch learning environment, where the Ignatian idea of cura personalis—care of the whole person—is the foundation and the context in which real learning takes place. However, after they begin teaching their online courses, many instructors report feeling surprised and delighted to find themselves connecting deeply with their online students. Online spaces have great potential for creating instructor presence, but you must be intentional in harnessing the rich diversity of communication tools at your disposal.

In fact, when we ask faculty to consider the kinds of things they are already doing in their classrooms to create community and presence, they usually realize that—with a little bit of thought—these practices can be incorporated into their online learning spaces. Below are some ideas from Seattle University faculty for using the five pillars of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm to inspire students to fully experience course concepts and to internalize the material.

Context

How do you create a climate of trust and situate your course into the world of the learner?

"I begin by acknowledging the value of the students to the course. The course is designed to meet a certain set of objectives, yet the learner’s experience will also emerge and play a part."
"I start out by asking the students to work together creating class norms and defining community agreements."
"I like to ask the question, “What things have shaped your worldview?” but first I make sure that students are comfortable sharing."

Experience

How do you inspire your students to fully experience course concepts, to internalize the material so learning goes beyond an intellectual exercise?

"I usually provide an example, case study or illustration of a topic. Then I ask students to provide their own illustrations of the topic from personal experience.”
“I ask groups to discuss the practical implications of the readings by viewing it from an alternate perspective and writing about how their imagined personas would be impacted by the ideas put forth in the readings.”
“I like to introduce some form of civic participation into each course such as writing letters to public figures or creating blog posts so that students can directly experience public dialogue.”

Reflection

What techniques do you use to help students create meaning from their experiences?

“Reflections can take many formats. I have asked students to keep photo journals to assist students ‘seeing’ theory in their everyday lives. Sharing these without the narrative is a great way to get students to discuss what they see in photos of other students.”
“After engaging in some activity, I feel that creating space to debrief is important. It helps the students to synthesize the data. It is also important to give them the opportunity to think about how their biases might impact their observations”
“I use semi-regular check in discussions. ‘What are you learning that has surprised you? What has challenged your assumptions or experiences with this topic? What are you worried we're not considering, who/what has been left out of our exploration?’”

Action

What do you have your students do with their new understanding? How will you encourage students to engage in transformative action?

“I like to ask students how what they’ve learned has been meaningful. ‘What is this learning going to change for you? What are you going to change because of this learning?’”
“I design my course to try to put them in a situation where they will need to get involved with people outside the classroom.”
“I sometimes ask students to create an action map that shows how they might use what they’ve learned outside of class and in the future.”

Evaluation

How do you guide students to evaluate their own learning and formulate a plan for future growth?

"I often start by asking groups to reflect on the course objectives and report back about where they think they are and how they might relate the objectives to their lives and learning trajectories.”
“At the end of the course, I ask students to self-assess based on learning goals each student formulated at beginning of the course.”
“I like to see how the students are interpreting the assignments. I ask three questions: 1.) What did you notice about the assignment? 2.) What did you value about the assignment? 3.) What questions are you left with after completing the assignment?”

A key principle of Ignatian pedagogy and spirituality is that the person is not simply a rational cognate but a creature full of desires and creativity. The human person is a volitional creature with many layers of affect and intellect. This depth of the human person is what Ignatian education seeks to inform and enliven and it is for this reason that Jesuit education has for centuries sought to utilize all the senses, all the sciences, all the arts to invest students with a depth of intellectual insight and creative imagination."

Brendan Busse S.J
Ignatian Discernment Online: Instructor Notes