Envisioning Online Learning Spaces in Higher Education: A New Philosophical Framework for Design

Strategic Insights -

As the demand for digital learning environments continues to grow, researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) have sought to create a philosophical framework for designing online spaces that promote radical openness and social change. By incorporating postphenomenology, assemblage theory, and feminist technoscience, this framework aims to foster embodied vulnerability, material awareness, and critical thinking among students and educators.

Key Takeaways:

  • The authors argue that traditional online learning environments often reinforce socially entrenched norms and institutional interests, rather than promoting radical openness and social change.
  • Postphenomenology, assemblage theory, and feminist technoscience can serve as a philosophical scaffolding for designing online learning spaces that center the voices of all students and prepare them to create social change.
  • The proposed framework emphasizes embodied vulnerability, allowing students and instructors to see one another as persons and be in-humanity-with one another.
  • Assemblage theory highlights the materiality of online environments, which are socially situated and shaped by power relations, and encourages students to see and overcome these distortive forces.
  • Feminist technoscience takes a step further by opening a way for students to see themselves as change agents in the larger social context outside the classroom.
  • The authors hope that this philosophical framework will inspire research and practice in educational technology design, particularly with the growth of artificial intelligence and its influence on higher education learning systems.

Statistics:

  • The study has been peer-reviewed and published in the Journal of Philosophy of Education.
  • The Journal of Philosophy of Education is a leading international journal that publishes articles on philosophical issues in education.
  • The study aims to inspire research and practice in educational technology design, particularly with the growth of artificial intelligence and its influence on higher education learning systems.

Sources:

  • Envisioning Online Learning Spaces In Higher Education As Spaces of Radical Openness: a Philosophical Scaffold for Design. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2025.
  • Journal of Philosophy of Education. Oxford Univ Press, Great Clarendon St, Oxford OX2 6DP, England. (Wiley-Blackwell - www.wiley.com/; Journal of Philosophy of Education - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-9752)