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.
I had a year of experience teaching online prior to participating in Humanizing Online STEM Academy, due to the shift to remote learning that took place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I was fortunate to have already heavily utilized Canvas for my course which were all taught in a face-to-face format. However, the humanized element (typically provided in person) was lacking in my courses due to a lack of knowledge of and experience with video elements.
After participating in this Academy, I feel much more confident in my ability to have my presence show though in my online classroom. I feel more comfortable with creating short imperfect videos, which will help me be more relatable and approachable to students and foster trust with them. Also, it lessens my workload. I no longer have to re-record and edit every video to absolute perfection. I particularly appreciated the introduction of the Liquid Syllabus and think this is a great resource and first contact to students in all courses, regardless of instructional format. Overall, I have gained insight and skills that have empowered me, not only as an online instructor, but an instructor in general.
My courses are likely shifting back to face-to-face format, however, with regularly integrating Canvas into my course prior to the shift to remote learning, I plan on utilizing many of these humanized online practices to assist in making content more streamlined and accessible for students who are juggling multiple priorities. One aspect I continue to work on developing is better incorporating opportunities high context learners to excel. The Cultural Reflection Inventory was an illuminating activity on which I plan to continue to reflect as I develop content for my future courses, regardless of instructional format.
I particularly value the Liquid Syllabus created during the Academy. The ability to provide students with a sneak peek of me, the course, and class and campus resources are so incredibly helpful. I appreciated that I can embed several tutorial videos for downloading the statistical software we utilize, as this is something that takes a lot of time during the first week. This gives them a jump start!
The key goal for me was to provide students with the feeling that they really can reach out for help, and most students do. The course carries the reputation of being very challenging, but when students seek help and build community in the course, they succeed.
Overall, I will be using this for all of my future courses, regardless of the instructional format.
After going back and forth with a few options for a personalized course card, I decided to go with an image that matches the aesthetic theme of the course overall. The course card and each unit image used on my course Canvas homepage feature an image of flowers taken around Humboldt County, many on HSU's campus.
I created my humanized homepage to serve as a hub for the course throughout the semester. I decided to keep text and information provided directly on the homepage at a minimum and created "tiles" with labels and images that direct students to key information. I provide tiles for helpful information, lab, and the each unit of content.
Most of the homepage tiles, and unit overview banner images are flowers, all taken in Humboldt County, most taken right on HSU's campus! I wanted to provide students with a reminder of campus as many are still learning remotely.
This Get to Know You Survey will be "assigned" to students during the first week of the semester. It is placed at the end of a welcome module that students will go through to open the following content modules in the course. I let students know that their responses to the five questions will be kept confidential. I offer students extra credit for the completion of the survey.
I ask students to identify anything that may interfere with their success in the course. This provides me with information on students who are balancing multiple priorities and may need additional support during the semester. In addition, I provide a space to let students know that while the course was designed with accessibility in mind, to please feel free to let me know if they come across any gaps.
In this Ice Breaker assignment, provided in the first week of class, students are able to introduce themselves and being to develop a sense of community in the course. It also gives students an introduction to me! I also ask students to provide a hobby, a skill, or a self-care practice they engage in. Before an exam, I direct students back to this to get ideas to de-stress.
In this Wisdom Wall assignment, provided following students' second exam, I ask them to reflect on the things they did to prepare for both the first and second exam. They then can decided if they want to share a strategy that was sucessful or unsucessful and describe why. The goal here is to create a collection of stratigies that students can use.
I am really looking forward to this assignment as often students who stuggle on my exams just need to refine their study habits. Having this reflection prior to the final two exams (which are more difficult) will hopefully support students self-efficacy.
This Bumper Video is used to give students a key overview of the goals for week 1 of the course. I plan to incorporate these at the start of each module. Time management can be an issue for my course, and this has become more pronounced in the online classroom. Particularly as the course progresses, students are reviewing the new week's content and completing homework for the past week's content. My hope is that these short video overviews will provide students with clear expectations of exactly what they should be working on in any given week.
This Microlecture covers the topic of bar graphs. The key learning objective is to identify the type of variables represented with bar graphs, and the key componets of the graph (title, x-axis, y-axis).
I present my lecture videos embedded into tutorials created in RStudio. This micolecture is one of a four part series, all of which are about 5-10 minutes. Students watch the video and then the tutorial provides either no credit concept check quizzes, or the opportunity to practice running code, or sometimes both.
