Michigan Virtual University

Michigan Virtual University, a leading nonprofit educational organization, is dedicated to advancing learning and teaching through research, practice, and partnerships. With a mission to build learning environments for tomorrow, Michigan Virtual University has supported Michigan's education for over two decades, offering a range of services beyond its renowned online learning options and professional development for educators.

Behind the scenes, Michigan Virtual University conducts original research, tests innovations in learning, and provides consulting partnerships to promote effective practices. Given the rapid pace of educational change, the organization continues to discover and provide new models and resources to move learning forward. In the 2021-22 academic year, Michigan Virtual University achieved significant milestones, including delivering over 46,000 student enrollments, helping educators maintain their certification, serving over 133,000 enrollments in professional development courses, and working to boost literacy rates with essential instructional practices.

Partnerships with leading educational organizations allowed Michigan Virtual University to host a series of online professional development courses for educators on social emotional learning, which reached over 17,000 enrollments in FY 22. The organization also published seven research reports on topics such as the effectiveness of K-12 virtual learning in Michigan, inequality in Michigan's K-12 online education, and educator perceptions of online social emotional learning courses. Michigan Virtual University continued to offer consulting services for K-12 schools and organizations, and formalized a partnership with the New Future of Learning Council, providing administrative support and meeting space.

In FY 23, Michigan Virtual University trained 15 employees on unconscious bias and established new elective courses for K-12 students, including creative writing, reading strategies, and careers in criminal justice. The organization earned certification for nine student courses from Quality Matters, a nonprofit organization recognized for quality assurance in online learning. Michigan Virtual University provided alternative accommodated quizzes for students with specific special needs in over 100 courses and reviewed and supported over 1,300 special education student plan documents. The organization served over 900 students enrolled in a full-time capacity and increased accessibility and mobile responsiveness for over a dozen online professional development courses.

Michigan Virtual University partnered with Blue Cross Blue Shield and MEMSPA to create a suite of suicide prevention courses for educators, which achieved over 2,000 course completions. The organization developed an executive functioning professional development course, which shares the six cognitive clusters that foster a student's ability to regulate their attention, working memory, and inhibitory control. Michigan Virtual University partnered with Michigan State University and the University of Michigan to create a series of fourteen modules that identify the latest research and best practices for serving a variety of special populations in face-to-face and remote settings. The organization also partnered with Grand Valley State University to create six micro-credentials centered around literacy instruction.

Michigan Virtual University created six school safety and mental health modules for school resource officers and conducted a pilot to use a student-facing digital assistant using artificial intelligence. The organization launched two summer enrichment opportunities for K-12 students, an introduction to esports course, and a series of interactive online camps that teach kids programming in Scratch, Minecraft, and Roblox. Michigan Virtual University conducted market research to better understand success in digital learning for underserved populations and partnered with Spartan Innovations, the Burgess Institute at Michigan State University, and the Small Business Development Center of Michigan to host the first-ever EdTech innovation pitch contest and bootcamp, which awarded a total of $20,000 in business startup grants and legal and creative startup assistance to three winning teams of educators. Michigan Virtual University processed 7,200 customer calls, closed 11,200 customer tickets, and maintained a 94% satisfaction rating through their customer care center. The organization reduced average customer care ticket resolution times by 28 minutes through the adoption of new efficiencies in their ticketing platform.