Hovannes Kulhandjian, 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.
I am in the Electrical and Computer Engineering discipline which is part of STEM. It is known that the material covered in Engineering could be challenging and a lot of time intimidating to many incoming freshman students that start our program in our department. I have been trying to connect with my students early on from the first day of classes. I have to mention that it has not been a fun experience for my students as I was initially very demanding and wanted my students to do the homework, exams, and exams in a timely manner and do well in them. Not thinking that the culture at Fresno State is totally, different from where I came from. Here we have first-generation students, who might need to work several jobs in addition to going to school and might even have families. Therefore, there was a strong urgency to change the way I was delivering my lecture either in person or online.
After taking this class, I learned a lot and acquired sufficient useful knowledge to better connect with my students in the classroom. The Liquid Syllabus was an eye-opener as my syllabus before was a dry 10 pages of text and I used to ask my students to read before class, many of them did not read and I totally now understand why. The workshop has helped me to be able to create more meaningful short lectures that are focused on particular points in the course or they could be a short video on exam preparation. The video editing tools as well as the Adobe Express slide shows with music and video or pictures are also very useful for my future teaching online as well as in-person classes that I plan to adopt. Above all the concept of humanizing a classroom is of such importance that I plan to incorporate many things that we learned in this causes in my future classes.
I have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to take this workshop and learn from experience professors on best practices and methodologies on how to humanize our classrooms. I am going to use many of the concepts that I have learned in this amazing workshop in my future classes including but not limited to creating a Liquid Syllabus, having a video welcoming message, having more one in one interaction with my students, replying to them with videos instead of a dry email or Canvas message, breaking down the lectures onto smaller more digestible videos as sometimes it is hard to grams those hard engineering concepts in a lecture that is over one hour long. Overall I am glad that I took this workshop as it was very informative and beneficial for my future instructional delivery of more humanized lectures.
I enjoyed the process of creating my first liquid syllabus and I think that this is the way to go when presenting a syllabus to students. Before my syllabus was very dry and I would ask my students to go over it before our first meeting and that was part of their first assignment. Many of them did not go over it now I can understand why was that the case. Having the Liquid Syllabus for my future classes would make it more humanizing and appealing to the students. The students will feel more welcomed and appreciated in the classroom. Showing the human aspect of us early on through the Liquid Syllabus I belive is of extreme importance.
For my course card, I used an image that is representative of the content of the course and at the same time, it is warm which gives them an idea of what to expect in this course. I used everyday items that they use like a light bulb that they already know and are familiar with and a battery to show that once you have a closed circuit the light bulb lights up. If you open up the switch then the light bulb turns off.
For my homepage, I selected a banner design that was the same as the banner I have in my liquid syllabus with slight modifications. I have added a diagram that is more humanizing and appealing than just a plain circuit. I wanted to show that the study of electricity could have such an important life as without it it would be extremely difficult to survive. I then present a welcoming message to the students followed by a brief overview of what the course is all about. I then provide them with Weekley Modules and Quick Links. Following that I provide my information to them as well as a link to the Zoom weekly meetings.
When creating my Getting to Know You Survey, I wanted to learn more about my students, see what their needs are, and what makes them feel comfortable in their learning process. I also wanted to ask about their hobbies to see what they like to do during their free time as some other students might have similar hobbies like playing the guitar or tennis. This will allow them to get to connect with others in the classroom. I also wanted to see what their needs are at the individual level so that I may target their needs and help them in any way I can.
For my wisdom wall, I wanted to share with my students how to create short videos using a Flip and share them with the rest of the group. I walk them through each of the steps on how to create a Flip account and how to share the video that they will record on the Wisdom Wall with the rest of the class. During this activity, they need to reflect back on the course and give some wisdom words to the incoming students who will be taking that same course in future semesters. I also provide an example of how to do the recording on the Flip account.
This bumper video I chose to provide Exam 1 Review for the Circuit Symbols. The content of this material will be covered in Exam 1. I decided to use a pictorial representation of the circuit symbols that they need to know during the exam as well as provide the use of those components in real life. The intention of the bumper video is to refresh the memory of my students just before the exam on some of the important components that will be coved in the exam. Having a bumper video instead simply providing them with slides or a formula sheet it helps them to hear the instructor and make him be present in their learning experience.
This micro-lecture is a short lecture that covers the main principles behind Thévenin's and Norton's Equivalent Circuits. Those are two of the main principles in analyzing circuits and breaking down a complex circuit composed of a bunch of resistors and sources to a single equivalent resistor and voltage sources known as Thévenin's Resistor and Thévenin's Voltage. Similarly, I show the students how to apply Norton's Equivalent to convert from Thévenin's Resistor and Thévenin's Voltage to Norton's Resistor and Norton's current sourse.
