Are you missing your students? Are you concerned about how this lack of human connection might affect your vulnerable students? The Humanizing Challenge is just what you need. You will discover helpful online teaching techniques and strategies that will help you cultivate a learning environment in which your students feel seen, valued, and safe.

What is humanizing?

Humanized online teaching ensures the affective dimensions of learning are addressed through instructor-student relationships and community, allowing trust, connection and empathy to drive engagement and rigor.  The 3-day Humanizing Challenge will engage you in inquiry about your unconscious biases and how they influence your online teaching. Using an asset-based mindset, you will see and improve barriers that prevent many of your students from achieving their full potential. By participating, you will gain knowledge of online teaching practices that support neuroscience and culturally responsive pedagogy and be more prepared to mitigate the effects of trauma on your students.

To participate in this 3-day event, we invite you to register for free for the 1-hour live sessions on days one, two, and three; plan to spend time each day completing the self-directed activities; and share your amazing work with your peers!

The Humanizing Challenge will support you with achieving the following goals:

1. Engage in actions that decenter white dominant culture and establish inclusive environments in which all students are seen and valued.
2. Recognize the influence of trauma on your teaching and your students’ learning.
3. Identify the connection between instructor-student relationships, engagement, and rigor.
4. Identify online strategies that send cues of trust to students.
5. Record, host, and caption a 2-3 minute, imperfect welcome video for your course.
6. Create a Liquid Syllabus with Google Sites to initiate positive instructor-student relationships at a distance.
7. Be prepared to further develop relationships with your students and leverage those connections to ensure they reach their full intellectual potential.

I’m in! How do I register?

No need to register! The pages provided for you here are archives of a live event we held in January 2021. But through the magic of digital technologies, we’ve archived the live sessions and created a resource you can use at your own pace to complete the self-guided activities.

Who should participate?

The Humanizing Challenge will benefit faculty who teach online and those who support faculty the most.

What skills are required?

To be successful, participants should possess the ability to navigate between multiple browser tabs or windows, download and upload files, record video with either a smartphone or webcam, and troubleshoot issues independently.

What technology is needed?

To complete the self-guided activities, participants will need a free Google account and either a smartphone, a webcam, or a free Adobe Spark account, and a reliable network connection.

What credit can you receive?

• If you attended a live session in January 2021, you should have received an email verifying your attendance. If you did not, please contact support@cvc.edu.
• Self-guided activities are not eligible for attendance verification from CVC-OEI/@ONE. Check with your local PD contacts to see if there is a process for validating your work for flex credit.

I have a question.

No problem! If you have a question that is not answered above, please send an email to support@cvc.edu. It will be forwarded to a friendly human who will be happy to help you. Or, if you prefer, you may leave a comment below.