Reflections

I feel a sense of tremendous gratitude for having been selected to serve as a member of this Humanizing Academy. As a STEM instructor "we" tend to rely a lot on data-driven facts and figures both in and our of the classroom but what this training after done over the last few week is bring me back to my roots as a educator and remind me that we are really there for the student, the whole student, and have a responsibility to reach each one of them in a way that will be meaningful and effective. I've been teaching online and hybrid classes for nearly a decade now, both at my current college, as well as at a few prior educational institutions where I have taught part-time earlier in my teaching career. I must admit that the training I've received here from this cohort will stand among the best I've experienced out of all my past instructional educational experiences. The camaraderie I have felt working along other STEM peers is wonderful, however, it's also been a value to me that, within STEM, we each come from a different discipline. Much of our fundamental views, overall, tend to be similar but our specific areas of focus allow for each of us to exhibit important contrasts of diversity. I appreciate how I've been able to take concepts that I was previously aware of, such as Growth Mindset, and have learned how to directly apply the principals in an appropriate manner to current and future lesson plans. Some of the online (digital) tools that we have looked are things that I have used briefly in the past but, admittedly, had not yet fully immersed myself in so I feel as though I have now been able to more fully grasp this exciting new collection of tools that are very much of interest to me. I feel as though these tools and techniques will be used not only within our Humanizing project but can also transfer directly into current classes and hopefully I will be able to see a nearly immediate effect from it. I plan on using a some of these tools well into the future now that I have a more comprehensive view of them from both sides of the classroom.

Computer Science, as a subject area, sometimes feels quite interdisciplinary to me because you're dealing with the scientific aspect of problem solving and solving problems that exist within a finite system however there is also aspects of artful creativity in how one can find a viable solution and apply it to a given problem. I remind my students that sometimes there is more than one valid solution to a problem and our job then becomes a function of determining which solution is the most elegant, beneficial and efficient. Also, there is a deep and important human aspect to what we do in Computer Science. It's true that the problems we work to solve are applicable only to machines however those machines are tools for people - human beings - so ultimately what we do in Computer Science has the potential to end up having a direct connection to people who will utilize the systems and solutions that we work to define as Computer Scientists. The learning experience of this Humanizing Academy has served me well to remind me on a regular basis that it is the people, not the machines, that matter most in the overall scheme of things. With each new week of content during the Academy I found myself rethinking a lot of old pedagogy that I have been stuck on for a while. I now feel a greater freedom has been offered to me which allows me to start fresh in some ways and work on being able to approach teaching in a way that focuses not just on What is the problem that I am trying to solve but also calls into question the validity of Who are the persons involved in the proposed solution(s). I feel as though I'll be a more effective instructor both online and in a physical classroom as a result of the training that I have received during this Humanizing Academy. I look forward to sharing further insights with more of my STEM colleagues for many years to come!