Be Human

In a humanized course, faculty intentionally cultivate an inclusive learning environment that fosters psychological safety and trust and forms connections that grow into relationships and a community. It requires faculty to step up first.
“Instructor-student relationships lie at the heart of humanized” online courses, “serving as the connective tissue between students, engagement, and rigor.” - Pacansky-Brock, M., Smedshammer, M., & Vincent-Layton, K. (2020). Humanizing Online Teaching to Equitize Higher Education. Current Issues in Education, 21(2).
Humanized online facilitation increases the relevance of content and improves students’ motivation to log in week after week. While humanizing aligns with culturally responsive teaching strategies, humanizing is simply good teaching and supports all learners. Research shows when students relate to their online instructor as something more than a subject matter expert and begin to conceive of themselves as part of a larger community, they are more likely to be motivated, be satisfied with their learning, and succeed in achieving the course objectives (Picciano, 2002; Rovai & Barnum, 2003; Richardson & Swan, 2003).

Humanizing Your Syllabus

You're not a robot. Therefore add the human layer to your syllabus. Here are some example one can use to place on their LMS syllabus or online

Example of a Welcome Video

Here is a welcome video for my Chicanx Studies online class. I used BigVu as my teleprompter and iMovie to edit and add music to my video.

A bit shy?

Here is a video without being in front of a camera. This was created in Adobe Spark (free).

Just a picture? Choose something fun. (& write fun bio)

Two Mexican Immigrants gave birth to me, Fabiola Torres, in the French Hospital at Chinatown in Los Angeles, California, USA. (That's my papi y mami voting together in 2018.) Since 1998, I have been teaching Ethnic Studies at Glendale Community College (GCC). My teaching principles are inspired by my M.A. from Chicano Studies (CSUN) and my M.A. in Learning Technology (Pepperdine’s School of Education and Psychology). I am a fur-mommy of 3 precious doggies - Wookie, Luke & Leia. My shelter in place goal is to stay healthy and find joy. Want to see how I still dance?

Get your own copy of the full Humanizing infographic

This infographic is by Michelle Pacansky-Brock and T&L Innovations, CSU Channel Islands and is shared under a CC-BY license (you're free to re-use it as long as you attribute the authors).

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