UNO Partnering With EDUCAUSE to Deliver Popular Professional Development Program

The University of Nebraska at Omaha’s (UNO) Division of Innovative and Learning-Centric Initiatives (ILCI) is excited to partner with EDUCAUSE, a national leader in advancing higher education with information technology, to launch a co-branded Learning Lab on Developing and Teaching a Humanized Course. EDUCAUSE is a community of more than 100,000 individuals at member organizations from around the world.

As education rapidly grows into new digital spaces, it’s important to ensure that online learning environments have a humanized approach fostering empathy, active engagement, and valuable connections.

A Need for a Humanized Approach in Online Learning Environments

At UNO, about 80% of students are enrolled in an online course in any given semester and nearly one quarter of enrolled students take exclusively online classes. Most UNO students feel that online courses offer more convenience and faster progress toward degree completion than in-person courses. But how do you keep learners engaged in an online learning environment? Instructors have the chance to foster meaningful engagement and cultivate community, even in an online classroom.

“The more students are connected to their instructor, the more engaged they feel. The connection between students and instructors shows a clear correlation to success and satisfaction with the course materials. When students feel connected, they perceive the course as more worthwhile,” said Stephanie Larsen, an instructional design specialist at UNO and one of the facilitators of the Learning Lab.

UNO as a Recognized Leader in Professional Development for Digital Learning

UNO is no stranger to faculty professional development or teaching with technology, as it has steadily built out infrastructure and services to support the 25+ years of high-quality online teaching on the campus. When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, the UNO campus – along with institutions across the country – rapidly shifted to emergency remote teaching. Considering many UNO faculty and students already engaged with the campus’s high-quality asynchronous online courses and programs, the transition was relatively smooth. As the pandemic lingered, however, it became clear that faculty and students were seeking even more ways to engage with one another through technology in a thoughtful, intentional, and meaningful fashion.

A renewed focus on engagement in digital learning reignited at UNO, starting with a virtual visit from author, teacher, scholar, and founder of much of the work on “humanizing online,” Michelle Pacansky-Brock, Ph.D. Following this was the launch of a series of faculty training and professional development activities on campus centered on this topic. Over 550 faculty at UNO have participated in a humanizing online program at UNO since they were launched in 2021.

Marlina Davidson, UNO’s Director of Instructional Design, worked closely with ILCI Associate Vice Chancellor Jaci Lindburg, Ph.D., to cast vision for and create the initial Humanizing Online professional development series for UNO faculty. Davidson has gone on to lead the development and facilitation of many other offerings with this focus including: Foundations of Teaching Online; Starting a Humanized Course From Week ‘0’; Continuing the Momentum to the End; Creating Engaging, Equitable & Inclusive Online Classes; and Improving the Accessibility of Your Canvas Course. Developing and Teaching a Humanized Course uses components from the UNO professional development courses for faculty and will soon be available to a national audience through the EDUCAUSE Learning Lab.

"Creating this course for our faculty was essential because a humanized approach in online education ensures that instructors can build meaningful relationships with their students, fostering an environment of empathy, connection, and active engagement,” said Davidson. “This Learning Lab is significant as it opens our innovative teaching methods to a broader audience, allowing educators nationwide to benefit.”

Learning Labs Outcomes: Developing and Teaching a Humanized Course

EDUCAUSE implements Learning Labs, which are live sessions designed to advance learning on today’s most pressing topics. The Learning Lab experience offers topic resources, asynchronous discussions, and interactive sessions, all of which accumulate to build actionable insights and skills for career focus areas.

Participants of the Teaching a Humanized Course Learning Lab can expect to learn practical skills for creating an engaging online learning environment. Participants will learn to:

• create inclusive and welcoming online learning environments
• develop effective strategies to enhance instructor presence
• implement opportunities to reinforce human connection among students and
• foster peer-to-peer engagement to create a sense of community.

To apply these skills together, participants will then choose a lab project scenario best aligned with their professional learning goals. Registration in EDUCAUSE Learning Labs is open to the 100,000+ members of EDUCAUSE, as well as non-members/guests from any institution or organization.

As education pioneers into different digital spaces, it’s important to ensure that online learning environments adopt a humanized approach, creating meaningful and sustainable engagement with students.

“Ultimately, this course greatly impacts students by enhancing their engagement, satisfaction, and success. When students feel valued and connected, their overall educational experience and outcomes improve dramatically,” said Davidson.

The opportunity to partner with EDUCAUSE to deliver this professional development program is an exciting opportunity for UNO.

“We are so thrilled to be partnering with EDUCAUSE on this project. Humanizing Online has been such an incredible movement at UNO for the past few years. We have often been asked if we would share our programs with individuals or teams on other campuses, and we are so pleased that the EDUCAUSE organization will be using their impressive membership base to help extend our efforts on this topic to institutions across the country and around the world,” said Lindburg.

To learn more about this partnership with EDUCAUSE or to share information about registration with colleagues on other campuses, please visit: Developing and Teaching a Humanized Course.