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 Ventura County Community College District.
I have been doing online teaching since 2013. But I have never offically learned how to do it properly. My Dean recommended that I enroll in the Humanizing STEM Academy hoping I can do a better job in accessibility aspect of my online courses.
After taking the course, I have a toolbox of humanizing elements and activities I can implement in all my classes. I also learned about various free tools to make welcoming videos, concise and focused lectures, and interactive assignments. I have already implemented some videos in my currently teaching online course!
Now moving forward, I definitely will continue using what I've learned to improve all my courses, both online and in-person. I have already been thinking about creating liquid syllabus for my upcoming summer online courses.
The first introduction to my course will be through my liquid syllabus, a friendly overview of the course. There are several elements including a welcome video, a list of expectations for both the student and myself, my teaching philosophy, a week #1 to do list, and several resources where to get help. This should help the student orient themselves even before the course begins.
Once a student logs on to Canvas, the first thing they see is the Course Card. I chose an image that clearly shows the course name and top image of the course home page.
Once the student clicks on the course card, they come across my Humanized Homepage. This page is meant to be inviting, but not overly informative. I want the students to know that I'm happy to have them in my course and hopefully excite them about the course.
The "Getting to Know You" survey is assigned in the first week of the course. There are several questions that will help me to better know who each student is, along with a variety of preferences. Along with their name and preferred form of communications, I ask questions like:
Do you have any pronounciation tips for saying your name?
When you use Canvas (our online platform), will you mainly use your phone, a laptop, a computer, or something else?
This is an ice breaker activity designed to have students share how they might make the most of or improve their community college, which includes their personal experience.
A Course Bumper is a brief, visually-oriented video that serves an instructional purpose in your course. I chose to explain one math problem that is a typical problem they will learn in this course.
A microlecture, according the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, is "a short recorded audio or video presentation on a single, tightly defined topic." I chose a simple elementary level math competition problem to illustrate the basic elements of such a microlecture.
This Humanizing STEM Showcase site by Kevin Lan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
