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.
Prior to taking the course, I have already taking quite a bit of courses regarding teaching online and equity in teaching, but never had one that is dedicated to STEM field and humanizing STEM. I learned a lot of the projects that we were doing in the Humanizing STEM in other courses (microlectures, bumper videos, liquid syllabus, etc) but never really sit down and do them, despite knowing that it can benefit the students. After our instruction came back fully in person, the priority of creating those content gets lower and lower for me as I interact with students mostly in person.
I am very grateful to have the chance to take this course. First it forced me to sit down and dedicate time to create a liquid syllabus, and various videos - which I always tell myself that I will do it when I have time but never did. I also learned a lot from the discussions with other peers and seeing what they are doing with their classes. I feel more prepared in the tools that I am using and am ready to implement some of the ideas into my class. In fact, I already used a lot of the content we created for the course in my classes. I used the Wise Feedback and wrote emails to my students and requested them to meet with me one-on-one. Of the 10ish students I reached out, all except for 2 met with me one-on-one (and most of the students I met with express that they appreciate the time and discussion). The Microlecture that I recorded will be implemented this week as an quick overview for students to study for their exams. And the bumper video will be included as part of their assessment in two weeks.
I felt more comfortable having my "face" shown in the videos. Prior to this course I was resisting showing my face (picture or video) in any online environment, and now I am slightly more comfortable including pictures of myself in the video to help the students to get to know me. It may still take a while for me to feel comfortable including a video of myself, but it is already a big step for me.
Fun fact - I did not realize how often I say "and" or "um" until I was editing the captions of the videos recorded. I usually write a script for my self and stick to the script when recording videos. But this course required us to record a lot of short videos and I don't always write a script or edit them. Now I am fully aware of how I talk unscripted, I am always going to record the videos with a script (or talk slow enough for me to edit out all the filler words).
With the tools I learned, I plan to increase my presences in the Canvas course shell that we use for our in person courses. I am going to start include the Wise Feedback email as part of my teaching every semester and gather student feedbacks. And the beginning of semester survey and liquid syllabus will also start being a consistent part of my courses. With the tools, I will now look into content in the course that can benefit from having a microlecture or bumper video and create those resources for my students. I also plan to continue improving myself and learn to cultivate an equitable and inclusive learning environment. This course gave me a lot of ideas and I am hoping to take more related training and read about it to get more ideas that are suitable for my classroom.
This liquid syllabus includes a welcome video and allow the students to know me on a more personal level. This can help establish the trust and build a rapport with the student prior to the beginning of the course. The information included in the liquid syllabus (the tips, expectation, and teaching philosophy) can also help demonstrate my students that I care for their learning and am here to support them.
I selected this course card image as this is a picture that includes diverse student conducting a cehmistry lab. In the picture, there is a student of color and a female student, both are considered underrepresented in the science field. Another reason for this picture is that this is the one that I can find where the students are also where proper PPE (gloves, lab coats, and goggles) and doing chemistry-like lab experiments.
The homepage includes a banner with a welcome message for students. Below, it guides students to see what they would need to know for Day 1 of the class as well as the first week of class (inside the link are discussion boards for different topics so students can connect with each other). It also has syllabus information to help student navigate around the course. At the end of the page are contact information as to how to find the instructor and a picture of myself to help humanize me.
The set up of the page provides a kindness cue to social inclusion for students by having a picture of myself, my contact information, and providing students clear instructions as to what to expect during the first day of class.
The survey surve as a kindness cue of social inclusion for students as it allows students to have a space to allow me to get to know them. It has guided questions that are open ended for students to have a chance to express their concerns. And this also send the student a message that I care for their learning and understand that they may have other commitments outside of our class to manage their time around.
The Wisdom Wall is designed for students to share their experience in the class with other students. It allows the current student to reflect on the semester and think about what they can improve or persist moving forward into their academic journey. It also allows the future students (which I am hoping to include a mix tape into the liquid syllabus) to see how their past peers's tips in taking a course with me.
This bumper video is meant for students to watch prior to the beginning of a lab experiment - which has content (Strong Field and Weak Field complexes) that we will yet be covered in lecture. It can be difficult for students to understand the concepts related to the lab when they have yet being introduced with it during the lecture.
This is designed to help with their learning experience so they can get a quick introduction to the content so they can be prepared for the lab. And later when we introduce it in the lecture it will hopefully make more sense.
This microlecture fits into the design of the course as it help the student connect concepts across three different chapters (equilibrium, thermodynamics, and electrochemistry) and provide them with a holistic view of how spontaneity relates to all three chapters. In the in person lecture it can be difficult to provide this content as students may need time to go back to their notes from previous chapters to fully grasp the content and make the connection. With a microlecture, students can view it at their own time and pace that allows them to better digest the content.
The learning objective that this aligns is "Predict the spontaneity of a reaction using the given Q, K, change in free energy, and/or cell potential under standard and nonstandard state conditions."
This site is by Yuting Lin 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.
