Compassionate learning design as a liberating praxis: stories from learning designers around the world

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi35.1331

Keywords:

compassion, social justice, equity, learning design, faculty development, educational development

Abstract

The goal of liberating learners, educators, educational developers and other stakeholders within higher education from systemic oppression and institutional injustice is unattainable if we consider social justice, well-being, mental health and care/compassion separately. As a collective, we developed a model for compassionate learning design, which is composed of four dimensions: participation, justice, and care, leading to a critical compassionate learning design praxis that itself comprises the fourth dimension.
In this article, we select four representative equity-oriented learning designers/educational developers from among 30+ we interviewed in 2022, seeking to identify examples whose practices aligned with elements of our compassionate learning design model in various contexts worldwide. We also explore areas that appear in their praxis that diverge from or are not covered in our model. We discovered that although we did not directly probe participants on the four dimensions, they each had examples of the four dimensions in their practices. We also saw how each person’s positionality and environment influenced: the ways they practised social justice; with whom they were able to create participatory approaches; and the kinds of care they were able to offer and nurture in those around them, an important expansion of our original model.

Author Biographies

Maha Bali, The American University in Cairo

Maha Bali is a professor of practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. She holds a PhD in education from the University of Sheffield in the UK. She is co-founder of https://virtuallyconnecting.org (a grassroots movement that challenges academic gatekeeping at conferences) and co-facilitator of Equity Unbound https://equityunbound.org (an equity-focused, open, connected intercultural learning curriculum, which has also branched into academic community activities Continuity with Care, Socially Just Academia, a collaboration with OneHE: Community-building Resources and MYFest, an innovative 3-month professional learning journey). She writes and speaks frequently about social justice, critical pedagogy, and open and online education. She blogs regularly at https://blog.mahabali.me, and is mahabali on Bluesky and @bali_maha on Twitter/X.

Daniela Gachago, University of Cape Town

Daniela Gachago is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Innovation for Learning and Teaching (CILT) at the University of Cape Town. Her current research focuses on academic staff development for designing blended and online learning in higher education, with a particular focus on developing socially just learning and curriculum designs based on co-creation and equity-oriented compassionate design principles. She teaches on the PG Diploma in EdTech, the Masters in EdTech and convenes the Masters in Higher Education Studies (HES) at UCT. She completed a Masters in Adult Education at the University of Botswana and received a PhD from the School of Education at the University of Cape Town. She is a C1-rated researcher and 2022 Fulbright Scholar who has published more than 70 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. She is the managing editor of CriSTaL, the journal for critical studies in teaching and learning in higher education. She blogs at http://danielagachago.blogspot.com and tweets under @dgachago17.

Nicola Pallitt, Rhodes University

Nicola Pallitt is an Educational Technology Specialist and Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning (CHERTL) at Rhodes University. She holds a PhD in Media Studies from the University of Cape Town. Nicola co-facilitates professional learning opportunities for academics to use educational technologies effectively in their roles as educators and researchers, supervises postgraduate students and co-teaches formal courses in Higher Education. Her research interests include learning design, online collaboration and supervision, design-based research and critical AI literacies. More information can be found at: https://www.ru.ac.za/teachingandlearning/chertl/staff/drnicolapallitt/ or follow her on Twitter at @nicolapallitt

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Published

27-03-2025

How to Cite

Bali, M., Gachago, D., & Pallitt, N. (2025). Compassionate learning design as a liberating praxis: stories from learning designers around the world. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (35). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi35.1331

Issue

No. 35 (2025): Special Edition, Liberating Learning

Section

Caring and compassionate pedagogies

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