Humanized Online Teaching Showcase
Kristin Sinha, Nursing 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.
Good intentions: At the beginning of this course, I set out to learn how to be more intentional in humanizing my online course. I intended to create a welcoming course, free of judgement, with many student-to-student and student-to-instructor interactions. In the beginning of the course, I was just trying to figure out how to use all the different teaching modalities and how I could apply those modalities to my online course. I was trying my best to complete the assignments to the best of my abilities and learn all of the awesome information being shared about how to be more engaging, welcoming, and inclusive in the online course environment.
Where I am.
Improved skillset, approach and student support: Right now, I am in a place where I feel more confident in my abilities to be more welcoming and inclusive in my course. Although I will complete all of the assignments, I know that some of my videos and media will need to be improved upon. I feel much better equipped to take on the online curriculum and provide my students with more engaging and thoughtful content. I have learned so much about humanizing the online course and will continue to develop my skillset and approach to make the online learning environment the best that I can for my students. I appreciate the growth that I have had in this course especially with learning how to use screen pal, you tube, flip, adobe express, etc. in many different ways.
Where I am going.
Creating an online course with a sense of community, belonging, and access: After completing this course, I will continue to develop better instructional media for my course, which will include more bumper videos, better lectures, a liquid syllabus, and more embedded videos. I will try to make more of a human presence in my online course. One of the most memorable lessons learned in this course is to reach out to students and to give a little grace because life does have a way of throwing things at us when we least expect it.
Liquid Syllabus
Welcome! This is my liquid syllabus welcoming tool to help students get acquainted with their instructor and the course. I use kidness cues to make the liquid syllabus more inviting. Tried to instill the principles of humanizing in my welcome video as well, to build trust with students that I will be a support to their success in this course.
Course Card
People: My course card is an image of medical professionals that is very inclusive. I chose this course card because it displays the multicultural and multidisciplinary teams it takes to take care of patients. My hope is that the students feel included and welcomed by the image.
Homepage
Inviting: I intend for my homepage to be inclusive and inviting. I want to show my students that I support them and will help guide them through this course. Through the use of kindness cues, I hope the students will feel welcomed into my online course.
Getting to Know You Survey
Social inclusion: The getting to know you survey provides for social inclusion because the student is answering questions about themself. The answers to these questions will better help the instructor guide the student through the course to be successful. Some of the questions included are:
What would you like me to call you?
What is the best way to reach you?
In one word, describe how you are feeling about this class?
I will utilize these questions to adapt my course to the students learning needs and to make the student feel included in the classroom community.
Wisdom Wall
Learning reflections: The wisdom wall is a reflection of the students and how they percieved the course. The wisdom wall is optional and if the student chooses to complete the wisdom was then they will leave information as to what helped them in this course and what did not help them. This wisdom wall highlights the students voices and lets them be heard by another class. The wisdom wall fosters metacognition by having students discuss their experiences over time.
Bumper Video
Increase engagement: This bumper video is a short overview of what lectures are to come for the week. The bumper video is intended to increase learner engagement, in hopes that students will continue to want to learn more about the subject matter.
Microlecture
Supporting learning: The microlecture provided discusses the diagnosis of cancer. The student learning objective (SLO) that this lecture aligns with is: Describe nursing care based on assessment data and nursing diagnosis for clients with acute and chronic health care conditions and Explain formal and informal teaching methods for clients, familial support systems, health care teams, and communities in order to optimize care for clients with acute or chronic health care problems. I expect this microlecture to be a starting point to more microlectures in a series of cancer lectures. The intention of my microlecture is to micro dose information to the students in a way that they can easily go back to look things up on video if they missed something or did not understand the concepts fully.