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.
With full implementation of AB705 looming, the 2018-2019 school year is when I wanted to revamp and redo my approaches to online teaching. I was looking for technologies that provided "just-in-time learning" and "just-in-time-practice" for math courses. I wanted to spend the next year or two develop instructional videos with Camtasia and eliminate the stigma of math courses being cartridge courses. My development of videos went slower than expected and then Covid-19 broke out in March 2020. The events and semesters that followed has certainly turned my life upside down. Since 2019, I have created or reconstructed 4 online math subjects, provided my own hundreds of hours of video content, and have used 4 different math-publishing software for homework in these grueling years.
I am still teaching a lot of math subjects. Our college has decided to offer an large amount of online classes, not just in liberal arts, but in STEM, too. I took this training to see if I can enhance any part of my teaching of online classes. Surely, there are items that I learned from this course that I plan to revisit, revamp, and reuse. I would describe myself as a very versatile teacher as I still teach both in-person and online in a variety of math subjects. I already collect weekly assignments from my online courses to give weekly instructive feedback to encourage growth and improvement from my students.
There are items to I learned in this course that I will use right away next semester, especially the items that work in both my in-person and online courses: homepage, liquid syllabus, and new Canva banners, to name a few. Informing my students a week 1 success kit, teaching philosophy, and a pact is a must try! There are teaching techniques that I will continue to incorporate and improve within my online math courses. These include maintaining a video presence with bumper videos, story-telling through video, video announcements, and microlectures. You can't do all this without the regular use of apps like YouTube, Flip, Clips, and Adobe Express. I will say that I am more comfortable in front of a camera after these 6 weeks. I am certainly getting more used to using a teleprompter, too. Keeping these videos short and imperfect is a time-saver and provides funny things for students to spot. I do feel more equipped to foster a sense of belong for my diverse student populations in my online courses.
The liquid syllabus will be used in Week 0 or before the first week of the semester to establish communication, trust, and care for student learning. It starts with a warm welcome statement, followed by a week 1 Success Kit to guide students with early week 1 tips. There is course pact between the students and the instructor that challenges both parties to be present, mindful, committed, and respected. A statement of a teaching philosophy is present, where diversity is emphasized as an asset, learning is a focus, and support for one another is necessary.
I wanted to create a course card that I can use for both my in-person and online classes. The picture depicts a diverse group of managers and scientists working as a team in the real world to represent my diverse student population having interests in STEM and business. The bright neon cursive writing is added to attract my students' attention and to help them sort the many course cards in their Canvas accounts.
My newly designed homepage serves as a kindness cue of social inclusion for students. There is a simple and pleasant welcome banner displayed on top with plants that are newly sprouting, symbolizing life in the course and with plenty of room to grow. There's me, in my natural state, drawing mathematics on a whiteboard with a smile. It's an expression to have students join me to have fun learning math! The rest of the page consists of very important items like Modules, links to student resources, and my general contact information. I just tried to keep it simple, so that page is clutter-free, inviting, and less scrolling!
Before administering the survey to my class, I remind them that the answers to the survey remains confidential and their photo identifications are not being shared with anyone or anywhere. The survey starts with me giving a brief introduction of what I know about my last name. I encourage them to tell me a brief story about their last name or first name. This surveys as a mini-written ice breaker before they ask survey questions about what community college programs are they associated with, are they receiving financial aid, or whether the are working to support themselves while attending college. I also ask if they have taken online courses before, when was there last math course, and do they have a preference for audio feedback. Finally, there is another write-in portion in the end for students to share anything they want me to know about them.
I use the survey to serve as an activity to build kindness and trust between me and the student and to have engaging and productive interpersonal interactions when later opportunities arises.
This ice breaker encourages each person to think deeply about their life experiences and express what is important to them. Then they proceed to find an object to symbolize that importance and share with the rest of the class through video, tone of voice, and story-telling.
To complete the assignment, each student looks to support two other classmates' story that connected with them. They express this support by responding positively with a video/voice recording to the two other classmates. Hence, the communication fosters a sense of belonging.
This video uses an example of data from a growing winter melon to help develop and introduce the definition of the average rate of change. Instead of stating the definition outright, we start on-location in my backyard, along with my instructor presence, where winter melon are growing.
Using Clips and Adobe Express, the video is put together to compute the data and talk about how the winter melon had grown at an average rate. After the example, the definition of the average rate of change is introduced!
This microlecture serves as a short lesson to introduce two scenarios where completing the square is used in algebra. Hence, the technique of completing the square is useful in calculus in solving quadratic equations or finding the vertex of a parabola.
This lecture is an opportunity to learn and relearn one of the greatest tricks in algebra of all time. Since the video is micro in size, students may expect this lecture to reappear during different parts of the course where the technique is needed again.
This site is by Ian Wu and is shared with a Creative Commons-Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 license. Creation of this content was made possible with funding from the California Education Learning Lab.
