Humanizing Online Showcase

Kimberly Bartsch

Math Instructor

Butte Community 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 am lucky to have been able to learn from my colleagues over the last 6 years at Butte.  I knew several aspects of how to make an online class feel more inviting to students.  I have incorporated a few of those aspects into my course before taking the Humanizing Online Course.  I still wanted to learn more, however, which is why I decided to enroll in this course.  I'm always trying to be a better version of myself. 

Where I am.

Now that I'm at the end of the course, I feel really excited to have learned even more about how to humanize my online classes.  I thought the information I was going to learn may not be applicable, especially right away.  However, I was surprised that I can use what I have created for this course right away.  It's very exciting to know that this course helped me to prepare my online classes as well as my face to face classes.  If you create a humanized course, it's good teaching practices for all courses!

Where I am going.

Now that I have some tools on how to create a few different things to help humanize my course, I plan to try to create these same things for my other classes I teach. The Liquid Syllabus is a must!!!  I love the idea of sending the syllabus "web page" to my students before the class starts so they can feel better about what is to be expected in the course, especially the first week of the class.

Liquid Syllabus

I will share my liquid syllabus with my students about a week before the class starts. I will communicate with students through the Liquid Syllabus that I am there for them to help them be successful.  By giving students the time to look at the Liquid Syllabus before the class starts, it will help alleviate any anxiety or questions students may have about the first week of the class. This communication with students will show them that they can trust me and it will show them that I care about them.

Picture of the Humanized Course Card in Canvas

Course Card

When students see the course cards on their dashboard in Canvas, I want them to be able to locate our class easily.  Not only is the course card an eye catcher, I purposefully chose it to convey to students some of the words that I value as an instructor.  I found the image using a word cloud in the shape of the circle that includes words like success, learn, teach, culture, study, etc.  I want student to know I care about them as learners in my class. 

Homepage

My Homepage serves as a nice greeting to my students.  The banner at the top is bright and inviting.  In the first line of text they read, they see that I'm engaged with them and want them to be successful. The structure of the class video helps relieve anxiety for students who are not knowing how the class works or what is expected of them. The button that gets them right to our introduction module is easily accessible to help them get started in the right direction. And, by including pictures of myself and my family, it shows the students that I am human, too.  I was open and shared about my family as well as some of my hobbies. 

Getting to Know You Survey

The questions in the survey show students that I am interested in them.  I want to know what they prefer to be called, pronouns, pronunciation, etc.  I want to know them and know their names.  I also ask questions that allows them to tell me more about themselves so they feel seen and heard in the class. 

Ice Breaker

The icebreaker assignment allows students to share an object with the class that represents their value(s).  They get to play with new technology (Flip) to submit a video response to a discussion that lets them share their object. Since it is a discussion prompt, students will be watching their classmates videos and making connections with each other.  They can see what student(s) they have have something in common with or differences.  They are able to connect with eachother even if they aren't in a face to face class. 

Bumper Video

The bumper video I created helps students know how to complete discussions in the class.  The video shows students how to reply to the initial prompt.  It then shows students how to reply to at least one classmate. The bumper video is in the first discussion page of the course so students can see how to respond to discussions. I believe showing students how to respond to discussions will help them feel included in the class, less anxious about how to reply to the prompt as well as how to reply to a classmate.

Microlecture

This microlecture is a part of a section in Math 11 that students need to demonstrate understanding of how to determine the measures of central tendency. This microlecture teaches (or reminds) students how to compute the values of each type of measure of central tendency. When students are given instruction on how to calculate certain things in math, they are able to learn how to determine the answers themselves with new problems, which allows students to learn the content and be successful in the class.