This site provides examples of instructional resources created in the Humanizing Online STEM Academy, a professional development program funded by the California Education Learning Lab and administered by the Foothill DeAnza Community College District.
I had never taught an online course before the covid-19 pandemic forced everyone to begin online teaching. Prior to March 2020, I had recorded a total of 2 online lectures when I had to finish out the semester after the birth of both of my daughters.... and let's just say that in my course evaluations, a student wrote "online teaching is not your strong suite." I was determined to improve my online teaching skills once the pandemic hit. That first semester, I took some steps to transition my course to be a better fit for the online learning environment. More specifically, I broke down my in-class lectures to more manageable bite-size "lecture snippets," each with an associated comprehension "quizlet" (yes, I created new words!) Feedback from students in spring 2020 was really positive, but I knew I could do better. During summer 2020 I participated in a teaching workshop put on by my University's Center for Teaching and Learning, and at this workshop I dipped my toes into the ocean of "Humanizing" courses - and I knew this was exactly what I needed to do to improve my course! When Kim Vincent-Layton, the instructor from the summer workshop, mentioned to me that there might be an opportunity to participate in the Online Humanizing Academy the following summer, I was so excited to apply and increase my skills in this important field.
My teaching philosophy has continually evolved since I began teaching at the University level in 2013. If you had told my previous self that I would be making welcoming course videos, recording micro-lectures and sample problems, creating discussions using audio and video technology, and using a warm demander pedagogy, I would have laughed. But now I see these practices not only as valuable, but as imperative pedagogical tools that not only promote equity, belonging, and trust in my virtual classroom, but also are anti-racist.
As a younger female professor, I believed I needed to put on a tough outer shell in the classroom and uphold "rigid expectations" so that students wouldn't take advantage of my kindness/vulnerability (my Academy facilitator helped me understand that what I have experienced is called "stereotype" or "identity" threat, and it is what many students in our classroom experience, as well). But what I've realized in the past year is that this was a terrible misconception I held onto for much too long. Given the nature of the courses I teach, and the fact that Humboldt State will soon become the next polytechnic within the state of California, I am confident that I will return to in-person lectures, labs and field trips. However, the warm demander pedagogy is not just for online courses - it's for all courses! I will use many of the skills I've developed in this Academy even if/when I return to the physical classroom. I am excited to continue to transform my teaching using these humanizing practices.
A "liquid syllabus" is a shortened version of a course syllabus, to present essential course information in a warm and welcoming manner before the semester begins. For me, the most compelling reasons to create a liquid syllabus are the following:
Many students access the syllabus on a mobile device and a liquid syllabus is designed to be accessible on any device that connects to the internet. In contrast, a word document or PDF can be tough to access on a smart phone or tablet. I want all of my students to have access to the material, regardless of how they access it.
Before I adopted the strategy of sending a welcome message 1 week before the semester begins with a liquid syllabus, students would often contact me to ask questions before the semester began. The welcome email, combined with the liquid syllabus eases student anxiety as they prep for the semester.
With so much uncertainty and upheaval during the past 2 years, a liquid syllabus is more important than ever! The name "liquid syllabus" has always been a little confusing to me, personally, so I refer to it as a "short syllabus" when I communicate with students. I will continue to use the "short syllabus" in addition to posting my full syllabus and course schedule as accessible google docs on the course Canvas page, even if/when I return to face to face instruction.
ESM 303 has a separate Canvas page for lecture and lab. In the past students would sometimes get confused about which Canvas course they should navigate to. Last fall I created 2 distinct course cards with different themes: lecture (what I am showing here) has green leafy ferns both on the course card and on liquid syllabus and the welcoming home page for the course. The lab course card has a picture of a Roosevelt elk, since students do a lab on elk observation. Both lecture and lab course cards say the course number and either "lecture" or "lab" to make it very clear to students which Canvas course they should enter. One of the goals for ESM 303 is to get students excited about being naturalists. Although the course card does not necessarily say "welcome," it does a good job of displaying calming colors/vegetation and the goal is to ease student confusion.
I have created a simple Canvas homepage for the first week of class with a verdant fern image banner at the top of the page (to stick with the green fern theme I use for ESM 303 lecture), a brief welcoming written message, and a 2.5 min video that welcomes students to the course and in which I share some information about myself. It is my hope that the simple homepage serves as a kindness cue of social inclusion for all of my students.
A "Getting to Know You" survey signals to students that the instructor cares about each student as an individual, thereby helping to alleviate stereotype threat. It also helps instructors learn important information about students that might need extra support during the first week of the course, so instructors can work proactively instead of reactively. I have used some version of an online "Getting to Know You" survey for years, but I think they are even more important in the online learning environment when there might be fewer opportunities for interaction. Importantly, I send individualized responses to each student after they submit their survey to me. This is just one more way to demonstrate kindness and inclusivity in my course. Two example questions in my survey are below:
What do you think will be your biggest barrier to success this semester?
Is there any other information you'd like to share with me?
I've found that students volunteer a lot of information in these two open-ended questions. I make note of any students with responses that might indicate they need extra support throughout the semester, and I proactively check in with them via a personalized email if I spot anything concerning (changes in behavior, changes in grades, absenteeism, or etc.).
An icebreaker activity is one way to begin to build community in an online classroom, particularly for asynchronous courses. These activities foster a sense of belonging by connecting students with each others' real life experiences.
In my icebreaker, I ask students to reflect on a memory they have involving ecology or natural history (the themes of my course). I share my own story of learning about Traditional Ecological Knowledge from Indigenous practitioners when I was young. I hope this activity will allow students to make connections among themselves and begin to build a trusting community within the course.
A "Wisdom Wall" is a collection of "learning stories" recorded by students in a prior class and listened to by students in a current class. By listening to advice or learning from previous student mistakes, future students can identify that struggle is normal. I have created my Wisdom Wall assignment for students to complete after they take the first exam. In this way, they will reflect on what worked well and what didn't work well in their learning before the first exam, and identify that learning and ability is a growth process, rather than a fixed characteristic.
A bumper video is a short video with minimal text and maximum graphics that can be used to introduce a topic or assignment, clarify a sticky concept, or introduce a new learning module. For my bumper video "scales of ecology," my goal was to create a brief, welcoming video that serves as a roadmap for the semester.
The field of ecology is a broad scientific discipline with many subdisciplines. One way to organize these subdisciplines is to think about the scale in which the ecological principles operate. My 2 min bumper video introduces students to the major subdisciplines that we will study in the course, while familiarizing students with the key terms organism, population, ecosystem, and community.
Microlectures are 5-10 min lectures on a targeted topic or learning objective. After my first try at recording lectures before the births of my daughters, I knew that students did not like long videos. When I pivoted to online instruction during the pandemic, I first began recording microlectures (I call them "lecture snippets" in my courses). My lecture snippets have improved as I've gone through several iterations of recording, but I am always tinkering and they'll never be perfect!
Students have already completed one statistics course and one data analysis course as pre-requisites for ESM 303, but I still find that statistics are a challenging concept for students to fully grasp . In this 7.5 minute microlecture, I introduce students to a common statistical analysis, linear regression, and demonstrate how to conduct a linear regression in Excel. The student learning outcome related to this microlecture is to "become familiar with common analytical approaches and graphical representation of ecological data."