Teaching virtue virtually: Can the virtue of tolerance of diversity of conscience be taught online?

Abstract

This research, conducted at a midsize university, focused on the virtue of tolerance as it relates to an often-neglected area of diversity—diversity of conscience—defined as ‘legitimate differences of moral and religious conscience’. Tolerance is essential for fostering civility in our increasingly diverse societies and for promoting the free exchange of perspectives central to the mission of higher education. A short whiteboard animation video was created in an effort to teach the concept of tolerance of diversity of conscience in an engaging way. This video was embedded in an online workshop that also presented the cardinal virtues as accountability parameters for civil dialogue. The results from pre- and post-workshop questionnaires revealed that students increased in self-reported understanding of the concepts, and were able to apply knowledge of the concepts, thus providing support that this modality may be a useful first step in teaching tolerance of diversity of conscience.