Lecturer, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
California State University, Fresno
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.
Before starting this academy I have not had a lot of experience teaching courses online. However, the courses I have taught online I found it to be very difficult to be engaging enough to get the students to want to participate, when we had synchronous meetings. Thus, I have tried to make an effort to explore opportunities to learn effective ways to teach online.
Reflecting on these last six weeks, I can honestly say I have added a lot of tools into my teaching toolbox. I remember exploring the humanizing showcases and the wisdom wall of past participants at the beginning of this academy, and I remember feeling a sense of intimidation. I was coming into this course not having experience uploading a video to YouTube, transcribing a video, using Adobe Sparks to create a presentation video, or incorporating apps in Canvas assignments (ie. Flip). Now, at the end of these six weeks, I am very confident and knowledgeable in all of those areas.
I will continue to refine and edit my liquid syllabus and Canvas homepage to make my online course an engaging and humanized experience. In addition, I would also like to applying some of these humanizing tools I have used in this academy and incorporate them in my in-person courses; such as the presentation videos and Flip.
My liquid syllabus serves as the first impression of my course and of myself as an instructor. It will also serve as a overview of course goals, course expectations, and student support resources.
My inviting course card is an individual sitting in the grass writing in a notebook. I have always found peace when sitting with nature and jotting down my thoughts, granted the weather is tolerable. This picture also represents the daily journaling I have the students do each week. I suggest students set a timer for five minutes and they are free to write about whatever is on their mind. I will also give a prompt for those students that are "thinking of nothing". The purpose of doing this is so the students have a chance to let go of anything weighing heavy on their mind, so they are able to free up space to absorb class content. Students enjoy it too, because it is like a personal communication between me and the student.
My homepage opens up with my introduction video, which I feels sets a warm, kind, and inviting tone to the page. I then have a brief welcome message that embraces the writing diversity of the students taking the course and that being the reason I love teaching the course. Then I directly them to the Weekly Module section where they can get started with the "Getting to Know You" survey and they can preview Week 1 material. I also have a list of support resources and a link to our Q&A discussion board. Finally, at the bottom I have my contact and office hour information.
This survey serves as an opportunity for me, as an instructor, to get to know my students and their starting points (both in writing and starting the course). By filling out this survey I plan to take into account everyone's writing starting points and needs of the course into consideration when tailoring the course. By doing so, I hope that create an inclusive learning environment where students feel they have a voice in their education. Thus, in order to build that learning community we need to get to know each other.
The wisdom serves as an opportunity for students to reflect about their writing experience in the course and to share a piece of advice and encouragement to prospective students who are interested in taking the course. It is not only an individual reflection, but rather a collective reflection since students are encouraged to reply to their peers and bring the course to a successful and meaningful end of the course.
This bumper video provides an overview of the course's literature review assignment. It also explains how they will take a prior writing assignment, their annotated bibliography, and apply it to this literature review assignment. The major goal of the course is for students to write a research proposal, which can be a daunting task. So, creating these iterative writing assignments that can be combined at the end to make up the research proposal makes it an enjoyable process.
This microlecture serves an overview of their final assignment of the course, a three minute elevator pitch. It provides guidelines, structure, and tips on how to make successful pitches. Throughout this course students exercise and improve their scientific literacy. Furthermore, I think it is equally important for students to exercise their verbal communication skills of their research topics.
This site is by Candice Cortney and is shared with a Creative Commons-Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 license. Creation of this content was made possible with funding from the California Education Learning Lab.
