Humanizing Online STEM Showcase

 Keri Clemens, Sierra College

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.


Where I was.

Before I began this course, I think that I had some elements in my class that were humanized.  And, I definitely had plans for others, but, I feel like this course has forced me (in a good way) to add some really great elements.

Where I am.

I feel like I have learned some new skills!  Yay!  I tried some things that in the past I would have thought were really hard, but it turns out, that they weren't nearly as bad as I thought they would be.  Things like making a really nice looking video with Adobe Spark.  That was pretty cool!  Or, even making the course home page banner.   Or, using Flip.  I think these small things hopefully will add up to something meaningful for my students.  

Where I am going.

I think that this class has helped me to develop some new skills that I can use in my classes.  Hopefully, my students will feel a sense of support and belonging from the very first time they log in to Canvas or even the from the liquid syllabus that they can carry with them through the course.

Liquid Syllabus

I plan to send out the liquid syllabus before class starts so that students will have a snapshot of our class.  I feel like it is accessible---not too overwhelming and hopefully, students will feel supported before we even start class.   

Course Card

I teach chemistry so I chose this image because I thought it looks a little like an experiment (although I think it's actually honey) and in the background, it looks like a woman which I thought might be welcoming since I have many students that identify as women.

Homepage

I tried to keep my homepage simple and not too busy.  I like the banner since it has a bit of chemistry happening.  Also, I tried to emphasize that I am more than happy to answer any questions.

Getting to know you survey

I plan to have my students fill out this survey at the start of class.   I hope the types of questions in the survey will help my students to feel that I care about them and want to get to know more about them.  I also help that they feel that I am here to support them.

Wisdom Wall

I chose to have the students post to a wisdom wall.  I will have my students complete this at the end of the semester and then I can hopefully share their advice at the beginning of the next semester.  I always feel like students listen more to each other!

Bumper Video

This bumper video is a brief introduction to electrolytes and solubility.  I plan to use this video as an introduction to one of our experiments.  Hopefully, I can have the students watch this before coming to lab.

Microlecture

In this brief video, I chose to introduce the relationships between the wavelength, frequency and energy of light.  I also did a quick practice problem in the video.  I think this will be helpful to my students because we do have a lab that involves these relationships so this can serve as a brief introduction to the idea and to some of the calculations they will be doing in lab.