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.
The first time I experienced online teaching was March of 2020. Due to COVID-19 restriction, all of my classes switched to online format. I already had all my course material available on our LMS (Canvas) but had no prior experience in teaching online through zoom both in synchronous and asynchronous formats.
Where I am.
This course provided me with more tools and showed me how by making even very small changes, I can greatly improve my teaching and connect better to my students.
I have already started applying all my learnings from this course to my upcoming courses in fall. Hoping to create a pleasant learning environment for my future students.
I had liquid syllabus before taking this course. But based on what I have learned, and modification made through the length of this course my liquid syllabus transformed be more user-friendly including essential information. Previously my liquid syllabus included my whole syllabus information which was very overwhelming.
I really like the new revision, it's easier to navigate, more user friendly and accessible to students.
For my course cards, I always use the image of the textbook cover for that specific course. the sence of familiratity with the book cover, makes it easier for students to find the course on their crowded canvas shell specially if they are taking several different courses.
On the course homepage, students will have access to the followings:
Course info button including the time and location of the class or the zoom link to the course.
Syllabus button including PDF format and liquid syllabus links.
Office hours button including my online and in-person office hours information.
Student services button including financial aid, health, tutoring and tech support information.
The get to know your instructor video is also added to the homepage.
At the bottom of the page, students will have access to weekly instructional materials.
I have also included a link for students to add their questions about the course in a discussion post which is visible to the whole class.
I have used similar survey questions in some of my courses in the past. I teach introduction to Engineering course which does not require any pre-requisite, and majority of my students enrolled in this course are new to college environment. For this specific course, I always include a similar survey at the beginning of the semester to ensure all the students are on the right pathway and taking the right courses.
But including this in all courses especially online courses has so many benefits. For example, if I know the majority of my students are working, I will set all the assignment due dates by Sunday midnight, this way they can catch up with any assigned work or lecture on the weekends.
It's surprising to know how many students are unaware of all the available resources. I used the template provided by this course and made minor changes to use it in all of future classes.
Ice breaker activities for online classes are necessary at the beginning to put everybody at ease. Seeing and hearing other classmates, helps class with better engagement in group activities and involvement in discussion posts.
My ice breaker prompt asks about an accomplishment that made us proud in life. I picked this prompt since students will be sharing something positive about themselves and this improves their confidence. I hope it helps us to connect and feel more comfortable throughout the semester.
My bumber video provides examples and detailed description for an assignment. This is not a typical lab activity for my programming course. So, creating a short video along with the description provided in the assignment will take some of the confusion or pressure off.
This microlecture is for my programming course using C plus plus language. One of the course learning objectives is for students to apply the principles of structured programming.
In this lecture, students will learn about common errors in branches, and they also learn about differences between different types of nested branches and how they operate.
For their assignment, they will do activities on their online textbook to practice concepts discussed in this video.
All the assigned activities will ask students to either write codes for a problem or error check a program that does not compile.