Online Learning Manifesto

Last Revised: May 2, 2026

As a lifelong learner, an artist, a maker, and an educator – learning through doing is at the heart of my pedagogy. Information is exponentially growing as internet access is increasingly integrated into society. Yet even with this readily available wisdom, information is only one part of the puzzle to learning. Learning is often centered around informational content, but quality  learning requires the integration of information into one’s world view and sense of self. Knowledge is the result of deeply embedding and understanding the application of information. Learning can be messy, complicated, beautiful, convoluted – but one thing is consistent and that is the need for learning to be deeply humanized. 

The challenge is how to replicate the rich three dimensionality of the human experience into a two dimensional platform. However, when done successfully, online learning creates more accessible educational opportunities for all types of learners and their many varied backgrounds. At the core of every learning experience, the human learner must be the foundation for each decision in online learning design. My experiences, personal values, and pedagogy inform the six foundations of my online teaching manifesto and guide my process to creating effective, impactful, and quality online learning. Learning design should be learner centered, clearly and explicitly articulated, integrate methods for motivating learners, cultivate community and collective learning, and provide opportunities to build and integrate knowledge through doing. The final component is iteration, no learning design will be perfect for every single learner. Collecting feedback, reflecting, and revising are the key to successful online teaching.

Each learner arrives at an educational experience with a rich background of prior experience, knowledge, values, and ways of viewing the world. In order for each learner to integrate the learning content, that information must be woven into the learner’s world view. By valuing, respecting, and celebrating each learner’s history and perspectives, learners are empowered to integrate that new knowledge. The educator’s role is to support, mentor, and guide learners through their journey of learning and developing as a whole person. In order to support learners, projects and assignments ought to be flexible and adaptable with the ability to customize the topic to each learner’s interests, needs, and goals. 

Leveraging robust educational research, Universal Design for Learning 3.0 (UDL), created by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), informs and strengthens online course design in a manner that the learner is at the heart of the learning process (CAST, 2024). UDL emphasizes connecting to the learner’s prior knowledge and integrating new information into their identity and world view throughout most of the learning guidelines. Designing to universally support learners in acquiring information includes illustrating concepts through multiple media, multiple ways to perceive information, presenting a variety of perspectives and identities, and supporting learners to create connections between new and existing information. 

Clear communication is central to the navigation of an online space where social cues disappear and all communication becomes formalized through email or other digitally recorded means. With a lack of informal social situations for a learner to clarify their understanding of an assignment, communication norm, or expectations within a course, clear and explicit communication eases anxieties and welcomes the learner to the objectives.

Clear guidelines, expectations, instructions, course navigation, organization of content, and progress monitoring all play a role in supporting the learner’s executive function and creates more capacity for the learner to focus on the learning objectives. In line with the findings of Farley and Barbules (2022), clear communication is not simply necessary, it is essential to equity in online education. Course design can be made more equitable through transparent assignments, policies, and rubrics. Feedback should be immediate wherever possible or timely, clear, action oriented and constructive, and social in its delivery and nature.

Pacansky-Brock’s (n.d.) learner inventory or “getting to know you survey” is another effective tool for initiating early course communication and creating a respectful and supportive relationship between learners and the instructor. Identification of “high opportunity students – those who will benefit most from [an instructor’s] high touch interactions” allows the instructor to make early contact for students in the most need of personalized and humanized interactions. Through supportive instructor-learner relationships and effortless frequent communication, learners experience fewer barriers during the learning process which translates to effective learning.

With information more accessible and plentiful than ever before in all of history, anyone can learn anything they want. Yet, classes and courses are still far more effective for teaching and learning. In part, an instructor is central to the content curation and delivery, but courses also guide one through the learning process, encouraging, cultivating, and motivating along the way. 

Our brains are driven by relevancy, immediacy and urgency. Many evolutionary theories of human development make particular note of the enormous amount of resources our brains require for the uniqueness of human cognition. Thus, the brain is particularly interested in energy conservation and efficiently maintaining its current priorities. By recognizing motivational factors, learning design can reinforce relevancy and immediacy of learning activities and provide strategies for continued engagement.

Effective online learning builds motivation throughout the course through social connection, peer-to-peer learning, sharing with others and giving each other feedback,  fostering emotional management, and facilitating meaning making. Well developed learning objectives guide and inform learning design but are also crucial for the learner to understand the course goals, outcomes, and purpose of each goal so that they are able to understand the relevancy, and create connections.  Project based learning can be an excellent method for customizing the learning content to one’s prior experiences and interests, application of information to different contexts, and helping the learner to engage deeply and share with others proudly.

Learning does not happen automatically nor does it occur in isolation. As humans, we learn through a variety of manners and methods but almost always in relation to others and our social roles. Knowledge is interconnected with all other facets of life, it must be related to the inner world, social roles and relationships, and all the connections that happen haphazardly throughout daily life. 

Interaction between the learner, educator, and cohort is what separates a classroom for merely content. Peer connections enrich and develop the learning process by bringing a multitude of rich perspectives to each conversation. Peer-to-peer learning strengthens knowledge, reinforces understanding, allows for development of agency and voice, and improves a sense of community. Creating connections then sharing and celebrating with each other is crucial in the online sphere and also so elusive in the two dimensional.

By initiating the learning experience with early course communication or pre-course communication, the learner-instructor relationship is initiated in a positive and supportive manner. Communication should be encouraged, effortless, and frequent throughout the learning experience. Cultivating a learning environment that is collaborative allows for a variety of perspectives, world connections, and further motivates learners to sustain efforts and build their sense of belonging and wellbeing in digital spaces.

Learning by making, or learning by doing, is the heart of my pedagogy. Learning by creating something with the information gained from a course empowers the learner to develop their unique voice and identity and integrate new information into their world view through the creation of an artifact. Knowledge is not static and does not exist simply to be memorized as information in our current generation is ever evolving. As recommended in Farley and Burbules findings, active learning projects that include culturally relevant connect and critical challenging topics, creates more engagement and higher learner success (2022). Therefore, online learning must prioritize doing, over absorbing information, in order to help support learners’ construction and integration of knowledge, and support them with the tools for continuing to construct knowledge throughout their lives. Project based learning provides ample flexibility for culturally relevant learning and identity development alongside course objectives.

 Learning is an iterative process built on experimentation, play, and risk. Throughout the process of creating something, learners engage in interaction and reflection, building up their comprehension of themselves and the course. Paired with a supportive learning community, scaffolding, and open communication, learners are empowered to succeed. Creating an artifact – a video, blog, artwork, object, code, or otherwise – creates something tangible rather than a test score and gives the learner something that can be utilized and built on top of. By creating rather than consuming content, learners make, as a process of making meaning and applying that meaning while developing voice, authenticity, and agency. 

Just as iteration is essential to the learner’s journey, it is also the foundation of effective teaching and learning design. When creating an educational experience, it is impossible to anticipate every learner’s unique needs and potential hurdles. I have come to realize that the ability to predict every pitfall is less important than fostering a collaborative, iterative spirit. To embody the practice of actively seeking and implementing feedback from both colleagues and students.

Rather than striving for the elusive concept of “perfection,” I am committed to a pedagogy of continuous improvement and experimentation. By modeling this iterative process transparently, learners are able to witness and experience the value of iteration in their experience of my learning design, and are encouraged to embrace the same cycle of refinement in their own work.

Over the past 16 weeks, my online learning manifesto has evolved and improved just as my video creation process is getting ironed out and refined. Navigating my own technical hurdles from Camtasia, to audio issues, webcam connectivity, and captioning errors, I have learned so much about myself as a learner, myself as a designer, and as a holistic person. Through revisions I learned more about creating engaging effective videos than I ever would have just by laboring over a single “perfect” video. Parts of this experience taught me that yes, you should write a script before recording a video, but I also learned to develop my own motivation and iterate on my own perspective. The cycle of implementation, assessment, and iteration is more than a workflow, it’s a mindset.

To truly sustain exceptional online learning, we must build frameworks and scaffolding to support, sustain, and reward the courage of experimentation and the joy of continuous improvement.

References

CAST. (n.d.). The UDL guidelines. cast.org. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

CAST (2024). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0 [graphic organizer]. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/static/udlg3-graphicorganizer-digital-nonumbers-a11y.pdf 

Farley, I. A. & Burbules, N. C. (2022). Online education viewed through an equity lens: Promoting engagement and success for all learners. Review of Education, 10(3), e3367.

Master of Arts in Learning Experience Design Program. (2026, Spring Semester). Course content from Unit 3.6: Unit 3: Humanizing online learning. CEP 820: Teaching and learning online. D2L. https://d2l.msu.edu.

Pacansky-Brock, M. (n.d.). Getting to know you survey. Michelle Pacansky-Brock’s website. https://brocansky.com/humanizing/student-info