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.
Before joining the Humanizing Online STEM Program, I was on a mission to figure out how I could intentionally create an online math course where students felt connected, safe, and part of a supportive environment. It is part of my personality to be a warm and empathetic individual. Still, I needed to understand how to apply this warmth professionally and meaningfully in the classroom. The Humanizing Online STEM Academy did just this - it gave me the proper knowledge and insight on what students need from me to feel like we are all human.
Wrapping up my time in Cohort 10, I now believe I have the necessary tools to humanize my asynchronous math course effectively and consciously. I feel more equipped to humanize my course by creating an imperfect online presence, building trust with my students by being selectively vulnerable, being a warm demander so my students know that they are fully capable of taking on challenging tasks, and building a sense of community with more humanizing discussions.
As an adjunct math instructor at Ventura College, I plan to continue teaching asynchronous math courses for as long as the opportunity is available. I feel extremely fortunate to have online courses as an adjunct instructor, and want to take advantage of the opportunity by giving students the most positive online experience in their math course they can have. I plan to use all the material I created in this program in my next class assignment and improve them as I go. I really want to use Flip or figure out a way for students to record audio when working through math problems in the weekly discussions.
I plan to engage my students in my online math courses by giving them my liquid syllabus a week before class starts. It welcomes students to the course by showing my imperfect self and using selective vulnerability to tell them I was a community college transfer student. My goal in doing this is to hopefully reduce the Belongingness Uncertainty they may be feeling.
I have bolded in the welcome section, "I care about your success." But if that isn't obvious to students yet, I demonstrate this Throughout my liquid syllabus by giving many tips and resources on how to be successful in this course.
Since a Course Card is an image that students will be seeing almost every day for 16 weeks, multiple times a day, choosing an appropriate Course Card held a lot of weight for me! I chose this image to send the message to my students that everyone belongs and everyone is capable.
Choosing an image where students work together also sends the message that we are all figuring out this learning process together, and no one is alone in that struggle. We are here to support and learn from one another!
This is the homepage, the very first page students will see when arriving at the course. Here, I express my enthusiasm for working with my students and request that they reach out to me if there is anything I can do to support them in their learning journey. This sends the message to students that I am here for them and dedicated to supporting them in their academic achievements.
This survey gives students the chance to introduce themselves confidentially and securely. This is an opportunity for students to share who they are and express concerns or fears about the upcoming course. I am hoping that this survey makes students feel important and valued and, hopefully, is a way to gain their trust.
In this icebreaker, students choose an object demonstrating their core values. This allows students to share what is important to them and also allows students to find common interests. This is a way for students to connect and realize that we have common interests. This helps students feel like they belong, they are not alone, and we all have commonalities.
In my courses, students complete their homework assignments through an online homework platform. Integrating the online homework platform with Canvas can be challenging for students to navigate when the setup instructions are generalized. To make the setup smoother, I created a step-by-step video for students to integrate their online homework platform with our Canvas course specific to Ventura College. I hope this reduces the friction students face when getting set up so they can focus on learning and getting familiar with the course structure.
When students learn the Chain Rule, they must have the preliminary skill of recognizing a composite function, particularly identifying the "inside" and "outside" functions in this composition.
This micro lecture complements the Chain Rule lesson video. I go over more examples of applying the Chain Rule, stressing the identification of the outside and inside functions of a composite function. Then, we apply the Chain Rule, which is a learning objective when students learn derivative rules.
