Humanized Online Teaching Showcase
Jennifer Linnea Daly, Photography Instructor, Butte College
This site provides examples of instructional resources created in the Humanizing Online Teaching Academy, a professional development program at Butte College, funded by the Culturally Responsive Pedagogy & Practices grant from the California Community College Chancellor's Office.
Reflections
Where I was.
I’ve been teaching online since 2012 and have always tried to find new and engaging ways to improve my online courses. Whenever I think, “I’ve got this,” I come across something new and exciting to add to a class. But there’s always been a difference in my relationship with my online students compared to how I interact with my in-person students. I’ve also avoided videos that showed me, preferring to do voice-overs. Previously, when I met with my students in a video conference, I joked that they finally get to see what I look like.
Where I am.
I am so excited to have new tools, techniques, and approaches to online teaching to incorporate into all my online classes (and even in my face-to-face classes!) I love the idea of a liquid syllabus and have integrated it into my personal website to share with future and potential students. I’ve also (sort of) gotten over my hang-up on showing my face and am thinking about where I can incorporate Flip into my classes.
Where I am going.
I’m reminded that the only constant is change, and for me, my online classes are always a work in progress. I want to create more “personal” videos, review my classes, and see where I can improve on inclusive language and ways for my students and me to feel connected to one another.
Liquid Syllabus
I love the idea of a liquid syllabus and instead of using Google Sites, I've incorporated it on to my personal website where I already share the microlectures from my digital photography classes. I know that my students already visit my website before the semester starts, so in addition to sending the liquid syllabus out to my class roster, the information is there for them to find when they're checking out their instructor.
Course Card
Past course cards for the History of Photography included images like the Latticed Window image above or the first photograph, View from the Window at Le Gras. Appropriate for the course content, but until you've had the class, the images are confusing. I chose this image to represent that the history of photography is still evolving, and even though there are new technologies, artists are still using historical cameras and processes.
Homepage
I've used a course homepage for several semesters, but it's always been static and, well, kind of boring. I was considering going back to the Module page as the home page until I took this class. I was able to incorporate the ideas from this course into the classes I was currently teaching and have plans for how I can use the homeapge in the future.
Getting to Know You Survey
I've also used "getting to know you" surveys for a while now, but I appreciated the questions used in this course and have revamped my survey. I did keep my technology questions but changed them to Likert scale-style questions.
Wisdom Wall
In the past, I've done an end-of-semester survey for students to give me feedback on the class, but never something like the Wisdom Wall. I like the ability to use videos from past students to ensure new students aren't alone in their learning journey, along with tips for how they can approach the class, hopefully as a collective process rather than a sole endeavor.
Bumper Video
This short bumper video is a brief overview of the Chicago Manual of Style used in art and art history writing. Many of my students are unfamiliar with the format, and navigating Chicago in written form can be daunting. This is the first of several videos about how to format research papers in Chicago.
Microlecture
This microlecture is part of a larger discussion of the verity (or lack thereof) of photographs, and the American Civil War and the Crimean War provide an abundance of examples.
In this assignment, students will be able to critically evaluate how the truthfulness or fictionality of visual information, particularly in photographs, and develop a deeper understanding of media literacy and responsible information consumption.
(My video includes historical images of dead soldiers, and YouTube has rated it 18+. The video has to be watched on the YouTube site)