Expanding interaction in online courses: integrating critical humanizing pedagogy for learner success

Millions of college students in the U.S. are enrolled in online courses, with the global pandemic resulting in a “pivot to online” for educational and health reasons. African-American college students continue to face barriers to academic success, and this response to Kuo and Belland (in Educ Technol Res Dev 64(4):661–680, 2016) investigates how the concept of “learner interaction” supports success. Finally, this response includes examples from online courses informed by “critical humanizing pedagogy,” in which social interaction is a key driver of learning.