In my role at my own institution, I have worked with hundreds of instructors to help them navigate the use of educational technologies used for teaching and learning. Up until about three years ago, the solutions I was providing were mainly technical in nature and neither accounted for or addressed equity deficiencies. I was under the impression that most of the professional development that was offered in that vein was for those doing the actual teaching and interacting with students, which I do not do. I can see now that I was very late in understanding my own needs, in that I could have been helping my faculty with both technical and humanizing their courses for some time. I almost feel a little guilty in admitting this.
I feel like I am on better footing to continue embracing humanizing techniques to better advise and guide my faculty clientele. I know there is much more to learn and now that I have a solid foundation, I feel much more comfortable seeking opportunities to delve into sustaining my professional and personal aspirations to become a better resource for my colleagues. I think the concepts of empathy and storytelling were the most valuable to me as they had an immediate impact on my ability to incorporate them into my work and my personal relationships. I was not expecting the academy material to help me grow into a better listener, but here I am! I feel much more confident in pushing past my own impersonal professionalism, and I have already used storytelling to help clients better understand and connect with concepts related to course design.
I am looking forward to continuing my own journey to further understand the connections between how we can better principles of humanizing our online education methods. I am hoping to collaboratively refine existing training we provide for faculty to focus more on the techniques presented in this academy experience. I am also hoping to build something similar for administrators, as I think there is great value in ensuring that all areas of our instructional operation are aware of the potential to improve both the quality of our offerings and the persistence of our students. I definitely plan on staying connected to the humanizing movement and adopting it as my own wherever possible moving forward.