Liquid Syllabus/Course Preview

I will use my Liquid Syllabus/Course Preview to establish trust and demonstrate that I care about my students' learning before the semester starts. I build psychological trust by showing my imperfect, vulnerable personal side in my welcome video. I show them my family, including my fur kitty babies, and I also briefly talk about my first experience in learning the bones as a 5th grader. I demonstrate my passion in the subject matter, which helps foster trust and excitement that I have the skills and knowledge to teach and support students in their learning. I show my care and commitment in supporting students as human beings through my sharing of my teaching philosophy, my availability and direct communication channels, our classroom community pact, my advice for success, and support service information provided. I acknowledge my white supremacy conditioning to convey my awareness and efforts to unlearn my own programming. This is important to share as I want my students to know that I am committed to antiracism work, that I reflect and learn to make myself a better human, make the course more equitable, and that I am committed to showing up for minoritized students. I hope this serves as a signal to minoritized students that I take responsibility for myself and that I am committed to supporting them individually, with intention. I also hope this signals to white students to be curious about their own conditioning and perhaps see me as a safe white person to talk to and learn from. Throughout my course preview I use multicultural language to encourage students to show up as their authentic selves, and that their differences only serve to strengthen the learning environment. Lastly, I use growth mindset language to foster student confidence and trust in themselves that they can lean into the discomfort of the challenging learning environment and grow, especially through trying new things and making mistakes.

Course Card

This course card extends a welcoming, inclusive invitation to students as it shows a diverse group of students interacting with one another and enjoying the learning process. This picture illustrates the active learning community dynamic that they will experience through class learning activities. Thus, students will view this card and will immediately visualize a positive, community-based course learning environment and be mentally primed for active learning with their peers.

Homepage

My Homepage serves as a kindness cue of social inclusion for students. Within the top banner graphic I have used plants to provide warmth and color and have added the inclusive slogan, 'Let's Grow Together!' My Homepage has a simple, easy-to-navigate design, with links to Weekly modules at the top followed by my contact information. Below my contact information I humanized my Homepage further by adding a picture of myself with my family in Yellowstone National Park.

Getting To KNow You Survey

This survey is located within the Orientation Module of my course, so students complete the survey during the first week of the semester. I use this survey to connect with my students and identify ways to give them specialized support. For example, a student may share their feelings of Imposter Phenomenon, or they may share that they have limited WIFI at home. I use these opportunities to connect and show up for my students. I share about my own experiences with Imposter Phenomenon, I connect students to specialized services, and I use the class information to adapt my teaching and materials to support students. For example, I provide feedback to each student in the preferred modality indicated from the survey.

Sample Questions:

• When you use Canvas (our online platform), will you mainly use your phone, a laptop, a computer, or something else?

• How do you learn best? What works for you? What doesn't?

• What is one thing that is most likely going to interfere with your success in this class?

Ice Breaker

This ice breaker assignment helps foster a sense of belonging by connecting students to one another. The assignment guides students to choose two or three values from a list provided and select an object that represents one or two of their top values. Students then present their object and how it represents their values via video or audio recording using Flip. Students are then asked to respond to at least two peers' recordings and comment on how their peer's object and values resonate with them. Real human connections are being forged by being vulnerable and authentic in sharing these things and seeing one another in video and/or audio format. Additionally, affirming values to oneself has power in increasing self-acceptance, self-worth, and integrity.

Wisdom Wall

The Wisdom Wall assignment fosters metacognition by directing students to reflect on their learning experiences throughout the semester. Students are asked to share their advice for success in the course. By recording one's own advice, students are reflecting on their growth throughout the class and how they overcame particular challenges. When students listen to the advice from the Wisdom Wall, they hear and/or see students that look like them share their struggles and how they overcame them. In effect, students view the Wisdom Wall students as peer mentors that normalize struggle as a part of the learning process, and they reinforce a growth mindset mentality in overcoming challenges. As a result, students are encouraged to develop a mindset that learning is more of a practiced skill than a fixed ability.

Bumper Video

This bumper video introduces the assignment and learning dynamic students will experience in the first week of lab and throughout the semester. Students learn that they will participate in a Week 1 Lab Scavenger Hunt to find specific anatomical features located on bones, models, and on wall charts in the lab. They will then use their phones to take pictures of each anatomical feature and assemble the pics into a document to be submitted by the end of the week. Students are encouraged to work in groups, and the lab resources will be set up to further encourage teamwork and active learning in the lab. 😉 This video alleviates anxiety about the uncertainty of what the first week of lab will be like, and it mentally prepares students for active learning in lab that focuses on physical movement, touching, and social engagement with peers. Lastly, this frames the learning as a fun game of discovery while simultaneously getting students to make social connections to create a sense of belonging in the class.

Microlecture

This is a Microlecture on one of the toughest concepts in my Human Anatomy Course, the process of Muscle Contraction. The learning objective is for students to describe the steps in muscle contraction starting at the motor neuron and ending at the sarcomere. I tend to include a little physiology (but not all of it!) in my explanation, which makes this challenging for students. When I teach this concept in a longer 'lecture' format, I scaffold the anatomy and associated functions more slowly using note-taking and drawing. This Microlecture will be a valuable learning tool for students because the entire process is packaged into a more compact, streamlined format, which may be more helpful for some students.