Holly Ourso, MA

Professor Holly Ourso is an expert at expressing complex ideas using simple language and an award-winning math educator. She holds a master’s degree in mathematics from Louisiana State with a specialty in graph theory where she also completed dual bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and news-editorial journalism. 

She has taught in higher education for over 20 years and in this time has written online math classes including algebra and calculus, trained and mentored adjunct and full-time faculty and she received the IDEA excellence award for high student reviews at South University. After 4 years of teaching as an adjunct for the University of Arizona Global Campus, she joined the full-time team in 2016.

When she is not teaching or spending time with family and friends, she enjoys creative writing and has had a short story published. She also enjoys creating digital art, hiking with her husband, ballet dance, kettlebell training, reading and vegetarian cooking.

Accomplishments

In 2016, she was nominated for the Forward Thinking, Impact and Teaching awards. Her 2020 Statistical Literacy revision won the 2021 ADEIL College Course award.

She has presented at professional conferences on topics including on Facilitating Transformational Learning Experiences, Live Learning: A Practical Application of Empathy as a Driver for Non-Traditional Student Success and The 3Cs of Live Learning: A Learner-Centered Approach. She presented at the 2025 TLC on the retention initiative Math Avatar/Math Hero Two-Part Activity, an effective Math Hero Intervention that can be applied to courses in any discipline, and authored an article about this in the UAGC Fall 25/26 Chronicle. She presented at TCC Hawaii in 2022, ADEIL in 2021 and TLC 2021 & 2022 on UAGC’s successful Live Learning mathematics project, including her 3C’s of Live Learning. 

She presented at UAGC’s Teaching and Learning Conference in 2023 & 2024 and at the University Fellows Program Roundtables 2022, 2023 & 2024 and guest presented at UAGC Speech professor, Dan Tinianow’s Teachnology series: How to Leverage Technology to Save Time, Q2 2023. She co-presented at ADEIL in 2021 with Forbes School of Business professor Bill Davis. Topic: Connections that Count: Teaching & Leadership Strategies to Facilitate Transformational Learning Experiences.

"My students inspire me to find creative ways to facilitate student success. I start with a learner-centered classroom, throw in handfuls of clear concise math explanations, add a generous helping of video instruction that targets key learning outcomes, add prompt personalized replies, sprinkle in some timely feedback and stir; it’s a recipe that turns students into learners!"

Her 2020 Statistical Literacy revision won the 2021 ADEIL College Course award.

She has presented at professional conferences on topics including Facilitating Transformational Learning Experiences, Live Learning: A Practical Application of Empathy as a Driver for Non-Traditional Student Success and The 3Cs of Live Learning: A Learner-Centered Approach. She presented at TCC Hawaii in 2022, ADEIL in 2021 and TLC 2021 & 2022 on UAGC’s successful Live Learning mathematics project, including her 3C’s of Live Learning.

She passionately believes education should be available to all. Her YouTube tutorial videos target key algebra concepts on which students typically stumble. And students watch them. Over 99% report they like the 30 tutorial videos hosted on her YouTube channel; since 2008 her fans have watched over 5,000 hours of tutorials and have racked up over 170,000 views. She utilizes this expertise to created introduction and subject matter videos hard-coded into UAGC algebra and statistics courses; they are featured on the Making College Algebra make sense HUB support page and the Introductory Statistics Support Page. She received the ADEIL College Course Award in 2021 for Statistical Literacy’s innovative course design and engaging execution; the course includes professional customized videos and five engaging learning activities she authored that are hard-coded into all sections of the online course.

“The beauty of the tutorial video is that students get a detailed explanation, but never have to ask a question. Many times, college students are confused about algebra, yet don't know what to ask.”