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.
When I started this course, I did have some experience teaching online STEM courses. But I was also aware that my online courses could be improved in various ways.
This course has given me some researched information concerning what is most helpful to online students, and has also equipped me with a few new tools. Most notably, I have read the research which implies that student to student interaction is very helpful to online students. Concerning tools, I have learned to use Flip videos and Adobe Express.
This course has convinced me that it will benefit my online students if I provide for them regular, short videos, to encourage them and connect with them as a human, and not just a "professor". In addition, I plan to provide more opportunities for my students to connect with each other throughout the semester with meaningful, but short, discussions.
I can see the value of a liquid syllabus in connecting to students even before a course begins. I might make it a bit shorter, just giving a general overview of how the course will work, the required items, and then a brief intro video.
I picked my Course Card because it shows happy people, of various genders and races, using Mathematics in an interesting way. I am hoping that this card will show a warmth of humans working with humans, in a STEM endeavor.
My Humanized Homepage includes a "Start Here" link to a video in which I personally welcome my students to the course. In addition, it has a banner at the top which includes some images of joyful people of various races and genders doing math together in meaningful ways that benefit society. And finally, I included a picture of myself.
My getting to know you survey includes many questions about how my students are feeling about taking this Math course, including their Math background, and how comfortable they are with being videoed during an exam online. I believe these questions will signal that I am concerned for them as individuals.
This Ice Breaker activity is designed to really help us get to know one another. I am asking the students to consult with 2 or 3 of their closest family or friends, and ask them for 1 word each to describe the student. Then the students will share a video or audio (using the FLIP tool) of these 2 or 3 words with us, and why they believe their close family and friends feel these words describe them.
After sharing their videos or audios, the students will watch or listen to 2 other students, and comment on any similarities or differences. I believe the very personal nature of this activity, espcially its audio/visual components, will draw us together.
This Bumper Video addresses one of the most important topics in an Introductory Statistics course: the difference between Association and Causation. The video gives an example that is typically misunderstood, and shows why it is not causational evidence, and then shows how to fix the study to make it causational.
This example is concrete enough that it will stick with many students.
This Microlecture shows how to find the height of a building when given the angle of elevation to the top of the building, and the distance from the building. This is a direct learning objective of this course, and a commonly used application of trigonometric functions.
The picture of the building and angle of elevation will serve as a concrete example of how real life triangles are handled.
