Teaching without the Face: The Influence of Online Teaching on Professors' Sense of Relational Responsibility

Although distance education is not a new phenomenon, the unprecedented advent of the COVID-19 pandemic left educators across the country with no option but to deliver their courses in an online format. Many studies have demonstrated the influence of distance education on teachers' practices and several studies correlate teachers' interaction to students' motivation, participation, satisfaction, and performance in distance education. There is, however, a paucity of research that analyzes the influence of students' physical presence on a teacher's sense of relational responsibility, especially at the university level and with distance education--let alone when teaching online is not an option. The purpose of this study was therefore to understand the ways in which the abrupt and involuntary shift from physical to distance education caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the absence of students' physical presence affected teacher-educators' perceived sense of relational responsibility, as articulated by Levinas. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 professors teaching in Faculties of Education across Canada. The main question driving this research was: in what ways does the physical absence of students influence professors' perceived sense of relational responsibility? Findings are presented and discussed under three main themes: relationships, responsibility, and responsivity.