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.
Photo by Baim Hanif on Unsplash.
Humanizing has given me tools to connect with students earlier to ease their anxieties as the class begins, which is a great first step toward building a relationship with each of them so I can best customize supports. Students have conveyed that introducing myself with a welcome letter and previewing some basic elements of what students can expect via the liquid syllabus are super helpful to calm their nerves and feel more prepared to start the semester well. A getting-to-know-you survey during orientation allows students to share privately information that they feel will allow me to help them best. All these elements help me demonstrate to students that I am on their team and rooting for their success.
Through my equity journey, one of the most impactful lessons I’ve learned came from reflecting on a message from parenting educator Dr. Ross Greene (Lives in the Balance), “Kids will do well if they can.” Many times, the students that spend much of the semester at the top of the class do so because they begin the class with tools around how to engage with the class to be successful – they’ve already committed their time, and they know how to take notes, how to study, and how to manage their time and other obligations for success. They certainly gain experience and grow through my class, but I have come to view my instructor role as a skills (life?) coach just as much as a content guide. Ensuring that all students have the opportunity to succeed means that I need this hidden curriculum (the outcomes that aren’t explicitly in my Student Learning Outcomes - SLOs) to be supported focus on growth toward building these skills, customized to what works best for them, so they can achieve success in the SLOs and build a strong foundation for future success through a universally designed variety of formative work, guided reflection, feedback and revision, and summative assessments.
While participating in the Humanizing Academy, Humanizing Online STEM Community of Practice, and the Ascend Community of Practice, I have been teaching all hybrid classes, and the blended online and face-to-face learning is often new for students. The liquid syllabus helps me outline how students can utilize Canvas to make consistent progress with lecture content and come to class prepared so we can focus our time on active learning during our in-person lab sessions. I utilize a customized Home Page to share encouragement, highlight skills and tips to try, share events to connect with the college and student life, and communicate important information about upcoming class activities, assessments, and deadlines, along with my contact info and student hours information. Student feedback has indicated that the reassuring tone and content of the customized home page is appreciated and helpful.
The Showcase google site I created while participating in the Humanizing Academy has been a great reference during the communities of practice and a great space for ongoing reflection. I appreciate that assignment, and it influenced the reflection guidance for the ePortfolio project (which came from a 3CSN design lab) I use in my Anatomy classes. Building assessments around metacognitive reflection is a great way to see and hear students in their work – for students to humanize their learning – an addition that I have found helpful to equitably design around and/or incorporate assignments in which students can openly use AI and outside references as tools, cite them, and reflect on their process – how the tools (and course content) help them to engage with the content to demonstrate their progress toward achieving SLOs.
Microlectures are such a great Humanizing element for students. I was already chunking my videos into 15-minutes or less to share them via YouTube before Butte College adopted Canvas Studio. Student feedback was very positive around the short videos; they help students fit them into their hectic schedules, take breaks, and review specific topics as needed. Along with a colleague, I presented a Flex workshop on how to record and share video in our Canvas courses to help colleagues. Then, while discussing challenges with colleagues during a Faculty Alliance for Inquiry and Research (FAIR Classrooms) community of practice, one colleague said he’d love to have students record videos for assignment submissions but wasn’t sure where to start. Brilliant! I developed an extra credit assignment for students to help me design instructions for students to utilize Canvas Studio (or another platform they are already familiar with) to record and share a short video explaining a concept, guiding the viewer through their hand-made flashcards, or use a screen-share video to demonstrate their interpretation of a complex diagram or identify anatomical features on images of lab models. This is another great way for students to humanize their own learning! I developed a Flex presentation from student feedback with a Video Assignment Template shared on Canvas Commons (if this link doesn’t work, search “Julie Jenks” on Canvas Commons).
During Spring 2024, I was able to participate in two humanizing communities of practice (CoP). Both provided valuable opportunities to discuss humanizing practices and student support and build community with like-minded colleagues. One connected STEM educators from colleges around the state to talk about specific policies, assignments, and processes for supporting students in the context of our STEM courses. Those sessions allowed us to talk through specific challenges we’ve each faced, and we were also able to support each other around meeting our own human needs and designing with sustainability and self-care in mind.
The other CoP allowed Butte College faculty to engage with each other around Ascend survey data we collected at three timepoints in some of our classes. The structure of the Ascend CoP allowed us to reflect on our own data, as well as the aggregated data for all the participating faculty, and discuss the data and ideas for improving student experiences. Overall, the data from my Anatomy classes was positive. The areas with the most room for improvement were self-efficacy (at survey 1, ~50% of students felt confident in their ability to perform effectively and do well in the class) and belonging certainty (with also showed an equity gap for white vs small-group students – at survey 1, just ~30% of small-group students answered positively to the question, "People here would be surprised if I, or someone like me, did well in this class." These scores improved slightly at survey 2 but dropped to nearly the same at survey 3. These results, to me, reflect the complex feelings students have about their place at Butte College, in my class specifically, and the intersections of their past educational experiences, their skills and competencies, their obligations outside of school, and their mindsets as learners. I would love to have the opportunity to participate in another Ascend CoP again after some time to check in with the data and discuss more with colleagues.
As I’m completing this reflection, I’ve also just completed a Five-day Experiential Learning Institute (FELI) with Diego Navarro of the Academy for College Excellence, in which I immersed with twenty-two Butte colleagues to practice community building exercises and creating a safe space to be vulnerable with each other, to apply an understanding of working styles and energy intensities to our sense of success and satisfaction, to learn about the power of listening in supporting a culture of dignity at Butte, and ways we can help students realize the strengths they have already built from navigating their complex lives. I still haven’t entirely processed the potential impact it can have on my teaching and my other roles at Butte College, and we will be moving forward several initiatives to continue and share this work at our college. There were many times during the experience when my experiences with Humanizing aligned nicely with the content and practices of the FELI. In fact, there is a group planning to adapt some of the tools for online teaching, and some of the tools from the Humanizing work can inform that work nicely.
I think the small shifts I’ve been making in my classes, more specific formative activities around building study skills, and participating in professional development and initiatives at Butte to improve student belonging, support mental health and wellness among students, staff, and colleagues, and to promote discussions among faculty around assessing achievement of institutional learning outcomes will positively impact students at Butte College and help me continue to grow as an educator.
Round 1 of the Ascend survey (which ran during week 3 just ahead of lab exam 1) set a baseline. Overall, the results were positive. The areas with the most room for improvement were self-efficacy (~50% of students feel confident in their ability to perform effectively and do well in the class) and belonging certainty (with also showed an equity gap for white vs small-group students -- just ~30% of small-group students answered positively to the question, "People here would be surprised if I, or someone like me, did well in this class." I hope these thoughts are more about how they feel coming into the class. Still, I am eager to continue collecting data and working on strategies to help students feel like they do belong and are capable of being successful. During our community of practice meeting, we discussed limiting changes beyond what we already do to isolate the impact of those continuing strategies and building community with time.
Our first community of practice meeting was a nice chance to get to know other STEM faculty working on humanizing their courses.
I have continued to utilize the humanized course preview and course cards, the customized home page, and the getting-to-know-you survey. And the lecture content in my hybrid classes is all chunked into microlectures. I also want to capture -- I overheard a conversation (in the context of accessibility) about how nice it feels to know via alt-text that a course banner features your smiling photo (rather than marking it decorative). That thought sticks with me. These things matter!
Since 2020 I have continually participated in various professional development activities to improve my awareness and teaching practices around diversity, equity, and inclusion. Each activity has been a treasured step on my journey of personal growth toward goals of closing equity gaps in my classes and being student-ready, one of the values at Butte College that demonstrates a commitment toward helping all students feel welcome and capable of achieving their goals. I came into this class comfortable with being vulnerable in front of my students and recording myself on video.
This class has been wonderful. The content has allowed me to reflect on ways to improve inclusivity and build community in my STEM courses, specifically addressing some of the areas that have previously felt like barriers to me. I am thrilled about that! I felt that instructor presence was already one of my strengths, and I've strengthened it here. Building community has been one of my big challenges. Now I've created things, described in my showcase below, that I can incorporate into my course design immediately to dismantle some barriers to online community-based learning, which is fantastic. I am still nervous about building an assignment around Flip, but I am determined to be brave to try it instead of assuming potential issues outweigh its added value.
I will continue to identify ways to participate in communities of practice around diversity, equity, and inclusion, to keep the concepts top-of-mind and facilitate continual reflection. I'll make a calendar reminder to review this Humanizing showcase to reflect specifically on everything that is captured here ahead of next Spring semester and beyond.
Students appreciate communication before the semester starts, especially those feeling anxious about the class. I believe reaching out to students is an incredibly helpful way to help students feel seen, and this is a way to start that pattern to build trust before the start of the semester.
I've used a liquid syllabus for several semesters now. I started out sharing a full syllabus and then reduced it down to a brief intro and week 1 success kit (though I didn't have that language before - I love it). This course preview is a wonderful balance between the two.
I chose the image for my updated course card design to create an inclusive, warm, and welcoming feel that allows students to see themselves in my class, taking steps toward their goals.
When I went to Canvas to take the screenshot to submit for the assignment, I was really struck by just how much more welcoming the new course card looks and feels (in the bottom right of the image here), so I decided to include the course cards I've been using in the screenshot to capture that contrast.
My homepage serves as a kindness cue by providing a warm welcome for students that missed my pre-semester communication while continuing the warm welcome for students that accessed my course preview.
It feels concise and helpful in directing students to exactly what they need to do during week 1 and how to contact me if they need anything. As stated in the Screenshare, I want students to know that I am here for them and willing to learn how to support each student best.
The placeholder is a great reminder that I still need to record a Course Tour video to add to the homepage!
I am very excited about the updates I've made to my Getting-to-Know-You survey with the assignment from this class. The survey is a great way to begin learning how I can best support each student.
Using the Notes section of Grades helps to remind me about what they said in the survey as I begin to review student work, and I can expand on my thoughts there. To make things fit, I use my own code of emojis that have meaning to me.
My wisdom wall assignment invites students to give advice to future students about what they've learned, but also specifically invites students to speak as if they are chatting with a friend that indicates they are "just not good at science." This thought has come up repeatedly in my Getting-to-Know-You surveys, and advice toward this specific thought in a wisdom wall from other students will be more impactful than anything I could say on the topic. I'm super excited to use this!!
It will also combat imposter syndrome and stereotype threat by helping students to know they are not alone in their apprehensions (if they have them) and to hear from students that have been through the course to encourage them.
Also, I really liked the modeling of two distinct assignments that students could choose between to demonstrate their progress with content. The language that students were to choose one and could ignore the other was very clear. Nice modeling!
The bumper video I created is meant to help introduce an assignment from week 2 that asks students to create a concept map or study tool. Students often get stuck on this assignment, trying to figure out what to do, since I give them agency over how to demonstrate their learning.
The format in Adobe Express allowed me to incorporate images, music, and my voice narration to give students ideas about how to approach the assignment - while also combatting imposter syndrome by making it more clear that there isn't some secret way of doing this "right" that the student just doesn't know.
For this micro-lecture assignment, I chose to cover the topic of pH, acids, and bases, since it is a topic that my human biology students identify on a unit reflection as being particularly cloudy. The objective, stated as the focus of the deep dive for the video and also listed in the page instructions above the embedded video, was to explain the relationship between pH and acids and bases and the importance of buffers in the context of the human body.
It fits nicely into the design of this class, which includes Canvas pages with text and images to cover the material for all the class topics, with short videos curated or created by me along the way to address select concepts. I've wanted to increase the number of videos I create, focusing on topics students identify as cloudy.
The video shows me on the screen in a small box with slides that include images and bullet points with main ideas. I like to use eye contact and hand gestures in the video to give that in-person feel. For the classes that I taught lecture in-person prior to the pandemic, I recorded lectures in 15-minute or less chunks similar to the micro-lecture style.
I uploaded the video to Canvas Studio and created a practice quiz overlay so students can practice with the content as it is presented in the video, complete with feedback for correct or incorrect answers.
Students suggested that embedded quizzes with the videos would encourage more engagement with video content, and I'm working to incorporate these into my Canvas content in small steps.
This site is by Julie Jenks 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.
