Presence in the Online World: A Contemplative Perspective and Practice Guide for Educators
is an edited collection that addresses the question of how we can bring the insights of contemplative pedagogy into the space of online learning. While the digital space can be one of distraction and disconnection, contemplative pedagogy offers time-honored practices that focus on cultivating mindful presence, awareness, transformative growth, and deep connection. These practices can help learners and educators tune into both their inner and outer worlds at a variety of levels: emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual. The volume’s contributors, who come from diverse disciplines, offer their reflections on their experiences bringing the contemplative and the online together during the tumultuous pandemic years of emergency remote, blended, and online teaching. They provide both practical guidance in introducing contemplative practices in the online or blended classroom and insights into the meaning of “presence” and the possibilities for deep connection in an online world. Together, their contributions demonstrate how students and teachers can cultivate a holistic presence with each other and to their shared human conditions as they navigate the virtual classroom.