Humanized Online Teaching Showcase


 Kelly Fredericks. 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.

Confused and frustrated by the lack of engagement and subsequent low success rates in my online classes, I found myself questioning whether I could maintain my standards of rigor in an online environment.

Where I am.

I continue to explore the concepts of design and delivery while maintaining rigorous content. While I intentionally create a humanized face-to-face environment, I'm learning strategies for a high-touch learning environment that supports students in meeting high expectations. I'm also becoming more sophisticated in my creation of digital products such as videos, especially regarding accessibility issues (captions, etc.).

Where I am going.

I will apply and continue to strengthen the practices learned during the training. I will compare submission rates and overall success data between Fall 22, Spring 23 and Fall 23. I'm feeling enthusiastic and optimistic regarding my ability to create meaningful online experiences for my students.

Liquid Syllabus

The liquid syllabus does not replace my Canvas site or require any active engagment in the course. Instead, the site simply serves as a friendly welcome to incoming students before the hectic pace of the semester officially begins.

Canvas course shell

Course Card

A course card creates a personalized touch and demonstrates and extra level of engagement with the course. This playful image was produced by one of my favorite Mexican street artists, Spaik.

The power of smiles: the basic gesture of respect and a social cue of inclusion, the smile resonates throughout my materials, starting with the course card.

Homepage

A humanized approach to online learning teaches us the power of intentionally designing virtual spaces with clear affirmations of inclusion. 

Teaching presence and selective vulnerability: the homepage establishes a first impression that includes an approachable, authentic presence (welcome video and liquid syllabus) and an emphasis on the learning process (as opposed to course policies and regulations).

Social presence and awareness: the first impression emphasizes that learning is a collaborative process (liquid syllabus elements) and the creatively designed a space adds an essential human dimension. Awareness that students may struggle is demonstrated by the Canvas how-to video.

Empathy and social inclusion: the clean, well-organized page has been critically examined by Michelle/Suzanne and my peers. Through multiple revisions, I have strived to imagine and respond to the student experience. My start here module uses language, images, and assignments to prioritize diverse perspectives, experiences and identities. 

Getting to Know You Survey

The humanized approach acknowledges a fundamental need for interpersonal attachments—to effectively learn, students need to feel a sense of belonging to a community. Creating a digital learning environment that meets this basic need can be challenging.

The brief get-to-know-you survey, a required task during the first week of the semester, is an attempt to begin building the type of trust needed to foster interpersonal attachments.

The low-stakes, un-graded, task simply pauses the course momentarily to check in with the student and to make the statement that each student is unique and an important member of the learning community.

Preferred name, pronunciation tips, and preferred method of communication/feedback normalize the power students have in determining how they want to present themselves to the learning community. The question about previous online learning experiences provides valuable information for me, the instructor, but also acknowledges that each students bring prior learning experiences to the course and those experiences impact their current learning situation.

The friendly requests for contribution (what might interfere with your success and what excites you the most?) are intentional microaffirmations that say “you belong here in your weakness and your strength” and therefore are subtle nods to dignity and inclusion.


Ice Breaker

The icebreaker is an application of cultural differences and the importance of community and connection. The writing task requires students to think about their own experiences and values in relation to place. Simply defining place is a deeply personal and creative act. Explaining why a place is significant, and sometimes even painful, is a gesture of vulnerability; yet, at the same time, the student has the authority to author the voice, quite literally through video or audio recordings of their own stories.

Because entering into an unfamiliar space can be intimidating, especially when that space is virtual, the requirement of writing in third person allows the student to present a persona. Whether authentic or imagined, these personas are representations of each person’s power to tell stories. The stories then become collective knowledge, details of which can be used to connect with one another. Finally, the task of responding with an open-ended question invites conversation rather than judgment.


Bumper Video

This quick video outlines the foundational structure used in the course. In previous semesters I offered a much longer version that most students did not watch. The more concise version is also more efficient and polished due to the Adobe Express tool. 

Microlecture

This lecture, originally 20 minutes but now condensed to under 10, introduces the essential concept of audience within the field of journalism. The learning objectives are to understand how the concept of audience:

Students will be applying what they have learned this week by committing to a specific audience, including researching, finding and writing stories to that audience. Moreover, the concept of audience is essential to their ability to meet the course SLO: Write simple and complex/long-form news articles using the inverted pyramid and other formats.


Applying humanized principles, the objectives are clearly stated in a personalized video where I am seen directly speaking to students (a form of instructor presence). The lecture then proceeds with an accurately captioned voice-over slide show that presents the information clearly and concisely.


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 Kelly Fredericks and is shared with a Creative Commons-Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 license.