Humanizing Online STEM Showcase
Abdur R Sikder, Instructor, Department of Computer science, San Francisco State University.
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.
Reflections
Where I was.
I was not familiar about this course before I join to this course. I took courses on how to create online couses at San Francisco State before the pandemic. I was teaching online courses during the covid19 pandemic. I was more interested to learn the best techniques to engage students in the longer version of the online class. In the summer semester I had to teach 4 hours online class. It was challenging to keep students engaged for this long period of time.
Where I am.
I learned so much in the Academy. What was most important , to me, was witnessing the way that Humanizing has been creating awareness among the educator. I appreciate how the developers and facilitators of this course tactfully added a lot of contents delicately.
Where I am going.
My plan is to create many of my existing asynchronous videos with ones made in Adobe Spark, to make the contents more brief for the students and make things clearer. I will also put more attention on building community and getting students to interact with video and audio early on in the semester, hoping their interest and involvement will carry on through the semester.
Liquid Syllabus
I will be using this liquid syllabus at the start of the semester as a first form of communication with my students. I will welcome them with a video of myself and a welcome message.
This also contains important information like class schedule, due dates for the assignments, the first day of class, and required material.
Course Card
Course Card
I decided to have this image for the course card, because it clearly shows what this computer architecture course will focus on.
Homepage
My homepage serves as a kindness cue of social inclusion for students. I included a picture of myself and students on campus that shows students who I am. There is also information about the course and a little more information about my educational and teaching background.
Getting to Know You Survey
I provide this survey to my students during the first week of class. The purpose is to know more about them and also adjust my teaching style to their needs. Two questions that I ask are "What is the one thing that is most likely to interfere with your success in this class?" and "How would you describe your preferred learning style? In other words, what do you know about how you learn? " These questions help me understand my students' learning needs, and I can prepare my lessons accordingly.
Ice Breaker
This ice breaker fosters a sense of belonging by connecting students with each others' real-world experiences. Nobody is perfect. Anyone can make mistakes including instructors while teaching. It is important to explain to the students that making mistakes is the part of the process of learning.
Wisdom Wall
This wisdom wall assignment fosters metacognition by connecting students with spoken reflections of their learning and portrays ability as a growth process, as opposed to a fixed characteristic. Students reflect on the class and give future students advice on how to study or how to prepare for a test or an exam, things to that nature.
Bumper Video
This video is shown during the first week. The purpose of this video is to review the technique to convert a decimal number to a binary number system. Students often forget the basics which they have learnt in the previous years. This is a refresher lesson.
Microlecture
Most students do not want to sit through a 1-hour lecture video. This microlecture focuses on showing students an example of how to convert a decimal number to hexadecimal number. This short video keeps students focused on a particular topics and covers the learning objective.