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.
At the beginning of this Humanizing Course/Adventure, I would have considered myself to be somewhat knowledgeable about tips and tricks for engaging students in an online course. I hadn't taught a whole lot of online courses, so I was eager and excited to learn some new skills to help me improve the ones that I already had gained through other professional development opportunities. I was definitely nervous about balancing everything because this was my first semester with my full teaching load, three graduate students, and a full research lab. Generally, I would describe my feelings toward this course as nervous excitement.
Now that we are at the end of this course, I would say I am glad that I completed this course. Even though it was tough to balance my schedule sometimes (and life got in the way a little bit toward the end), I gained a lot of new skills. I'm grateful that we learned to use so many different tools! I honestly have the best intentions of learning new fun tools, but I'm sure if it was up to me, I probably wouldn't have spent the time on my own to learn it myself. For example, I'm an Adobe Express convert now and will be using it in all my courses (not just online ones). I greatly appreciated all of the support from videos to our facilitators, and ultimately, I'm proud that I stuck it out, but also, I'm very pleased by the knowledge that I can now apply to make my courses more humanized.
In my future courses, I definitely will be implementing many of the things that we have learned throughout the course. I have also been empowered to think about my courses in a more humanizing way and listen to students' concerns bearing my new knowledge in mind. I appreciate all of the feedback from peers and Kim (my facilitator) to help improve my assignments and gain a new perspective on the online student experience. I've listed all of my deliverables below, and I am excited to share them with you!
My liquid syllabus is a nice introduction to me and the course that I am teaching. In my liquid syllabus, I try to establish trust by starting off with a nice welcome video. In my welcome video, I explain some of the things that I enjoy as a person. I think this helps communicate that I am a human just like them. Additionally, I think that many of the elements naturally communicates that I care about my students' learning experiences before the course begins. For example, my teaching philosophy and tips for success highlight my values as a professor and teacher. I believe that these are crucial messages to send to students before the course begins to (1) build rapport and (2) communicate expectations early.
I was pleased to see this assignment because this is one of the practices that I was already doing prior to our Humanizing Course. However, it did make me think a little bit more about the images that I select for my course cards. I chose this particular image for PSYCH 155 because we cover lifespan development. I wanted to capture the essence of the course with a lot of age-related diversity. However, I also like this image because PSYCH 155 is a course that requires a lot of personal reflection and connection to everyday life, so there is the added bonus that there is a reflection in the picture as well.
My Home Page has significantly improved since the beginning of this course. There are several elements that I think serve as kindness cues for students. First, the banner helps the course look friendly and approachable. Next, the current module is listed. This will help students find the current content that we are on. Then, we have my contact information and question cafe link. I believe this also serves as a kindness cue to help students view me as a person, and also so they can easily contact me if needed. Finally, I add navigation tips toward the bottom which provides a reminder to students what each section is for and where to find information in my Canvas course. All of these strategies provide kindness cues for my students to welcome them into their online learning environment every week.
I was very excited to see a Getting to Know You Survey as well. This is also a practice that I was engaging in prior to this course, but I gained a few extra tips along the way. The Getting to Know You Survey is crucial for learning more about your students on a human level and basic details that really make a difference. I had a student tell me at the end of their in-person class once that I was the only professor that knew their name. Ever since then, I have made it a concerted effort to learn my students' names but also to make sure I'm using the correct name and pronunciation. Additionally, I liked the idea of learning more about how students access the course and different feedback styles to help improve their experience in the course. All of these serve as kindness cues because it communicates respect and general interest in the students and their preferences.
My Wisdom Wall provides a place for students who are finishing out my course to reflect on their growth throughout the the semester. This optional assignment allows them to reflect back to the beginning of the semester and what they thought might be a challenge or barrier to their success compared to how they feel about it now that the course is coming to an end. For those who choose to participate, incoming students will be able to hear from previous students' advice. This is a valuable resource for incoming students because peer-to-peer interaction is key in the context of a course but even semester-to-semester. Hearing this advice from other students is a great way to build trust with students because it comes from peers-those who have actually taken and successfully completed the course-rather than just advice from their instructor who created the course.
This Bumper Video idea was new to me, and it is something that I definitely think fits into the context of my courses. This video serves as a review for a term that students often struggle with: episodic memory. Students tend to misuse this particular term in relation to other types of memory, so I felt it was a good choice for the bumper video. I expect that this video will improve students' learning by providing a short, digestible video that provides visuals to pair with the term.
Developmental Psychology is sometimes a challenging course because it is highly relatable to students at some points while very distant at other times, particularly older adulthood. Students often struggle with older adulthood because it is something they are less familiar with and further from (the majority of the time). This particular topic is based on common knowledge about older adulthood when it comes to cognition, specifically memory. I chose this particular topic because it is sometimes where I find student's prior beliefs might interfere with their understanding of cognitive changes in late life (e.g., stereotypes commonly held by general population). The learning objectives for this microlecture is to (1) identify the cognitive changes that take place in late life regarding memory and (2) suggest some intervention strategies for maintaining memory in late adulthood. I expect this video to help improve students' learning experience because it is shorter content that focuses on fewer learning objectives as opposed to entire lecture on a chapter.
