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In summer 2020, Northeastern University developed a fully online curricular pathway for incoming fall first-year undergraduate students who could not learn in residence. This pathway included 18 Global Challenge (GC) courses, each designed around project-based learning (PBL), grounded in a complex problem defined by Northeastern University research faculty, and based on the classes’ individual research agendas (e.g., social justice, health, the environment). The GC courses were designed to help students develop key intrapersonal and interpersonal skills as well as academic proficiencies. The GC development team conducted a systematic study of the courses during the first three semesters of their development and implementation. The investigation’s guiding question was, “To what extent, and in what ways, can learning experience design, online structure, and facilitation support PBL learning, teamwork, and a sense of connection among students in asynchronous courses?” Data sources included student surveys, instructor reflections, and course observations. Findings highlighted the importance of a learning experience design infrastructure to support PBL challenge development; that design supports for challenge development are necessary, but not sufficient, and an online course architecture that reinforces PBL also needs to be developed; that student attention to course resources needs to be scaffolded within the course and optimized for the online modality; and that a system for instructor mentoring in online PBL pedagogy is important to course success.

This workshop report describes the facilitation of and insights resulting from two sessions on applying the principles of a trauma-informed approach to working in educational development during times of uncertainty which took place at the 2021 Swiss Faculty Development Conference in Spring 2021. The goal was to bring an awareness to how pandemic-induced trauma is affecting both educators and students, and how educational developers can encourage inclusive teaching by embedding these principles into their own programming. Our recommendations expand on the existing work related to classroom practices by offering tips on how to model a trauma-informed approach through the lens of the seven principles from the Substance and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) when working with faculty members.