Date: Wednesday, October 16th 2024
Time: 4:30-6:00pm (AT) / 3:30-5:00pm (ET) / 12:30-2:00pm (PT)
Workshop Description:
Are you seeking strategies to create a sense of community and belonging in your online courses and digital teaching? Have you ever wondered how to infuse empathy and understanding into your virtual interactions with students? Have you found yourself in a dilemma where you aim to encourage the use of technologies for enhanced engagement in online teaching and learning, yet want to caution students about potential risks associated with these technologies? As the prevalence of online courses and components rises and as the diversity within the online and virtual student demographic expands, the imperative of infusing humanistic elements into online teaching and learning becomes increasingly apparent.
A burgeoning body of literature in online education underscores the need for pedagogical approaches that prioritize inclusivity, diversity, and accessibility, and that consider the social implications of technological incorporation. The 2023 Educause Horizon Report underscores the growing sophistication and accessibility of technologies, notably with the emergence of Generative AI tools. Given this landscape, a critical and ethical orientation towards humanizing online learning via increasingly digital pedagogies emerges as an urgent necessity for Canadian higher education institutions.
This workshop aims to encourage reflexivity in faculty and instructors, prompting us all to critically assess our previous and ongoing practices in humanizing (and/or the use of potentially dehumanizing) aspects of online teaching and learning. Together, we will foster discussions on how educational technologies can – and should – be critically and ethically integrated into our increasingly digital teaching contexts.
Matthew Dunleavy (he/him) is an educational developer and scholarly teacher with over 9+ years’ experience. He immediately joins our CTEI from York University where he was an Educational Developer with the Teaching Commons; before entering that role, he served as the Program Director of the Online Learning and Technology Consultants (OLTC) Program at the Maple League of Universities (Acadia University; Bishop’s University; Mount Allison University; and St. Francis Xavier University). In 2022, he was awarded the D2L Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning by the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) for this work.
