Humanized Online Teaching Showcase
Sara Smallhouse, Art History Faculty , 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 had a little bit of training as an online instructor before the forced distanced education we all did our best to provide during and post-pandemic. I had done most of the @ONE courses and felt that my courses reflected an instructor that was knowledgeable in online teaching, but I had definitely been feeling a bit mechanical now that I was balancing my in-person and online courses. I saw this as an opportunity to rethink the compassion I had once felt with remote learning and this course offered a wonderful opportunity to do so.
Where I am.
I am inspired by new tools I have practiced with in this course. I can easily make short videos, host them on YouTube, caption them myself, and embed them in my Canvas course. This seems much less daunting then the tech I was using before, and now I feel more empowered to make videos on the fly, like bumper videos as needed. I also, really enjoy the Adobe Create platform for making short videos. They looks so professional, I like the music and that you can adjust the volume, add simple effects and colors, it is really fun! There is a lot of potential for Flipgrid as a discussion tool in my course as well.
Where I am going.
Though I felt that I was very sensitive to my students in deconstructing the institutional language in my lectures, in building individual choice into mys assignments so that students can put themselves and their backgrounds and identities into their work if they choose, and being thoughtful of their time commitments in terms of workloads and deadlines, this class opened my eyes.
In the data and articles we read, as as a student in the course myself, I was reminded that sometimes our kindness and humanity makes or breaks a students' performance. Sometimes, even int he virtual and asynchronous online classroom, they show up for US, and so I will not only build an online Art Appreciation with this in mind, but this is my new online teaching philosophy.
I think I was feeling that there was no student on the other side of the screen, and I learned that students often feel the same way. This is not the way forward. The only way forward is as a warm demander!
Liquid Syllabus
I am so thrilled to be somewhat proficient in Google sites! I can see myself using this as a tool for my classes in the future, in many different ways! It is very easy to use
I do like the idea of the liquid syllabus. Before, I used to send a welcome letter with similar information, but this has so much more, and the videos add my face and voice to the process.
Course Card
Choosing an image for my course card was actually pretty hard! This is Art Appreciation after all! I avoided an artwork because i did not want to choose one as a representation for the whole. I went with this image because my students are often attracted to artworks with bright, cheerful colors, and it has a heart, a positive, welcoming, symbol of love and compassion.
My hope is that they will project their own meaning onto it!
Homepage
View the video for more, but I utilize my homepage as a kindness cue to my students by including my personality, humor, inclusive language, and including my face for more virtual contact.
By not assuming that they can navigate Canvas, or that they are use to Canvas courses, and providing solutions like helpful quick links to the syllabus and week 1, we help reduce the noise of the the semester start so they can focus on exactly what they need.
The added intro and welcome all helps them feel that this is a real space made just for them, instead of a screen, which- let's face, who would want to be learn from!
Getting to Know You Survey
This survey will serve so many purposes. To the student, it shows care and concern from the instructor. It will show even more care if that information is put into practice, and so I am trying to figure out how to turn this information into a tool I can check into frequently! I don't want it to appear superficial, but as real and genuine, as it is!
The second wonderful discovery about this survey is that it does some basic getting to know you business, but how it will help me as an instructor, is to track students that might need extra care and support. For a variety of reasons, students might need extensions, multiple attempts, and additional resources. This survey primes me by giving insights to students who might need a little more help, and I can be far more personal when I offer it.
Ice Breaker
Phew! This one was a tough one! Not the actually assignment, just showcasing it in this video! Again, I am so very glad that I had the opportunity to work through these tech skills, as I feel much more confident as an online instructor with these new tools and know-how.
Using Flip for this ice breaker will make a huge difference. This self-affirming ice-breaker, which you should learn more about by watching this tour that I lovingly made, allows students to bring in their personal values, talents, perspectives, and backgrounds, through my adaptation of the prompt. This interest in their lives and backgrounds is definitely a kindness cue, and can also work as cultural awareness too, especially in the context of art.
Bumper video
I am so grateful that I was challenged to do this assignment! For the bumper video, I created a brief introduction to our exhibition project. It is a sort of complicated project, and since I usually just have written instructions, I often get a lot of questions. I think this video, which will go in the weekly outline before they read the assignment, will address so many of the questions they typically have.
The video makes it feel like I am right there, explaining it to them, but it this nicely produced package!
Microlecture
I have several mini-lectures over PowerPoint presentations already in my course. The program I used, however, has undergone many updates, and I was feeling very overwhelmed at the thought of learning new technology so that I could make updated to my online courses. Using ScreenPal, I was able to easily record video. I am still working on editing though!
For captioning, I feel more confident using YouTube, which allows convenient timing and editing side-by-side. This video, explores Student Learning Objective (SLO) C, Differentiate art historical methodologies. I choose to have myself in the lower corner so I could play with the lens metaphor by switching my different lenses as I look for different information in the artwork.
I think that the playful metaphor with the example, using my face and the ability to show the image for discussion, will help them understand that there are many different approaches for assessing artworks.
The Humanized Online Teaching Academy is adapted from the Humanizing Online STEM Academy, by Michelle Pacansky-Brock, Mike Smedshammer, and Kim Vincent-Layton. This website was created by Sara Smallhouse and is shared with a Creative Commons-Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 license.