Bridging technology and humanity: humanizing online pedagogy in digital environments

Abstract

Comprehensive analyses on incorporating the intersection of online education, humanizing teaching approaches, and digital tools remain scarce. To the best of the authors' knowledge, limited comprehensive studies integrate online pedagogy and digital tools to humanize teaching methods, enabling students to become engaged and personalized learners, while fostering empathy among educators. A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted, utilizing databases from the Scopus, Web of Science (WoS), and Google Scholar. The study employed content and comparative analysis and advocated a grounded theory approach to inductively analyses and navigate the articles’ data for addressing three research questions. Based on a set of criteria for inclusion and exclusion, 34 research articles written in English between 2010 and 2024 were reviewed. Results indicated the community of inquiry (CoI) framework has been prominent over the past two decades and is considered suitable for integration with any digital tools when investigating pedagogical strategies at all education levels, aiming to make online learning student-centered or human-centered with the principle of ‘no child left behind'. The review offers significant implications for humanizing online learning to the educational technology community, particularly for policymakers and practitioners, to strategies, reflect on, and, if necessary, improve their practices for future sustainable education and efficient pedagogical performance.