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.
Teaching fully online classes was not something I thought I wanted to do until it was thrust upon me as a result of the quarantine. Like many other instructors, I took training classes for online instructors and started to implement many aspects of that training into my online classes.
Whereas my class had regular and effective contact built into it, I had much room for improvement in creating a community in my online class space. My class climate was chilly and built for the independent learner. I began looking for more and better ways for students to interact with me and each other in my online and remote classes. I also engaged in a journey towards a more equitable class.
As a result of this course and many others, I have made great strides in improving my online presence. My home pages are now easier to navigate and contain more information. My instructions are more clear and there are more resources like Canvas videos and links to the Canvas guides on my assignment pages.
I know these changes have also increased the equity in my classroom. By making my expectations more explicit, by relaxing due dates, and allowing more flexibility in how students demonstrate their learning, I have made my class more accessible to more learners of different styles.
I am heading towards improving my human presence in my online, remote, and in-person classes. I will tell more stories and share more of my personal life and encourage students to do the same. I will focus on being a warm demander and helping my students to live up to their potential. One takeaway from this course is that I have a growing edge when it comes to warm, wise feedback. Making feedback more useful and encouraging to students and easier for me to implement will be another area of focus as I move forward.
I think of my liquid syllabus as an advertisement for my class. While it isn't a syllabus in the legal sense, it does provide students with a sneak peek at my class. My welcome video and introduction provide students the opportunity to get to know me before they meet me. The other components of the website give students insight into my teaching philosophy, my expectations of myself and my students, and the details of the topics of the class.
Any student who is trying to decide which instructor to take for a particular class can learn a lot about me and my class before they make their decision.
I have chosen a tropical theme for my Precalculus with support class. My course card has a tropical vibe, but it also conveys the message that they are safe. The life ring that says Welcome Aboard assures the students that they will be taken care of and supported in this class.
My home page presents all the important information my students need to be successful. The first resource lets them know how to contact me. This conveys the message that I am there to help and that I expect them to reach out when they need to. Lower on the page students will find links to both student and technical assistance, so they know that the college also provides them support. The home page also has some very important links, like the modules link, the syllabus link, and the Zoom classroom link. It's important that these are all on the home page because students use them frequently and need to be able to find them quickly.
The student survey serves as a way for students to individualize themselves. It's like a personal conversation between just the two of us. This allows the student to feel seen as more than just a student but as a complete person.
By asking students how I can support their learning and asking them how they learn best, I am showing kindness and interest in their academic success. This is one of the first places where the student will experience what it is like to have a humanized STEM class.
This wisdom wall assignment asks my students to reflect on their development over the semester and share some advice with students in my future classes.
The theme of the activity is "Pay Your Wisdom Forward." Students who have completed my course will share their wisdom and accomplishments with my future students. When my new students see the results of the wisdom wall, they will understand that many people just like them have already completed this course, and they will be enriched by hearing from experienced students some advice for success.
This bumper video introduces students to the idea of the composition of functions where a function is used as an input for another function. This idea requires the students to stretch their understanding of how we work with functions, and many may never have considered that they are "allowed" to use a function as an input for a function.
This video lays the groundwork for understanding why and how mathematicians compose functions. Plus, it features pizza.
This micro lecture allows students to discover the concept of the domain and range of a function. Domain and range is a foundational idea that informs much of the remainder of most algebra courses. The objectives of this activity are to allow students to develop an understanding of domain and range so they will be able to identify both characteristics of a graph, as well as create a graph that meets specific domain and range parameters.
Because the domain of a function involves an interval or collection of many points, it can be hard to teach in a static modality. By using a video I am able to use motion to convey ideas that can't be conveyed in writing.
This site is by Katherine Belden-Hillery 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.
