Humanizing Online STEM Showcase
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.
Miriam Simpson, Instructor of Physics, Cuyamaca College
Reflections
Where I was.
I was very interested in trying some STEM courses online pre-pandemic and so I had done a lot of research on how to put physics labs and lectures online and was supporting the work of some other faculty in my department developing courses. Naturally this all got accelerated sometime in March of 2020. At this point I pivoted my classes and the courses in my department (Physics, Engineering, and Earth Science) into an online format, and we had regular community of practice meetings within our department (but open to all) to troubleshoot new ideas and discuss how things were going. I started relying heavily on feedback from peers and students to build solid online courses and from that started using Flip, Padlet, Canvas Studio, and YouTube pretty heavily in my courses. I learned to make instructions clear and short, cut videos into shorter topics, and respond early and often to students in canvas and via google voice.
Where I am.
This class was so valuable in validating what I have been doing, polishing up my courses by showing me new cool ideas, and demonstrating all the cool things an online class can be. It was instrumental in creating a motivation to take all the things I have learned both from students and this course and really making my canvas containers/courses super polished.
Where I am going.
I have already implemented some of the projects from this course into the courses I am teaching (both in person and online) and have some big changes I would like to make for my courses in the following semester. My big goal is to take some of the lessons from this course and propagate them to the rest of STEM and the college. We have many faculty participating in this program that really love it and I think it will help us with our ongoing campus cultural shift to stop fighting online education and lean into creating high-quality, intentional courses for students in STEM and beyond.
Cool Stuff I made in the Class!
Liquid Syllabus
I plan to link my liquid syllabus in the course catalog as well as the college webpage. Students take a huge gamble picking a course and an instructor at our college and I want to be sure that they feel safe and comfortable with that choice and know how to best reach me before they even have to make that choice. I tried to make the entire page bright and inviting as well as simple and informative!
Course Card
This course card includes elements of the course, clear description, and some people collaborating that are nonspecific in age, race, and gender but appear to be cooperating well. Even the background has a physics-y feel but the fact that the image has people and a lightbulb really struck me as cool. I used the font scheme I often see on cool tee-shirts and kind of nerded out on the layout. Hopefully these little touches come accross to the students and let them know the level of effort I am going to put into the whole course while still being friendly to look at!
Homepage
My homepage is meant to be both inclusive and informational. It has everything students need for the course right on one page, but it makes clear how to reach me and that I accept late work right on the front. It also makes it clear that I value their time. I try to have my self in there at least in cartoon form and I use the announcements to communicate big things including internship and experience opportunities for students.
Getting to Know You Survey
A survey in which I get information from students on how to customize the experience to best fit their needs. I always ask for information about other courses they are taking and what their major is. I use this to decide which course topics to spend more time on and what internships, conferences, and extracurriculars to advertise in the class. I also ask what they consider cheating to mean on online exams so that I can start the conversation about academic integrity from where they are.
Ice Breaker
This ice breaker gives students an opening to reflect on their own values share something personal by having them reflect, write, and then share via Flip Video. They are asked to share an object and connect it back to the values that they wrote about. I break the ice by both providing video instructions as well as a example video where I showcase some of the fun features of Flip.
Bumper Video
I use this video to explain a difficult mathematical concept that students have gotten really confused on over the years. I try to tie it into a lab and use lots of visuals and some real world examples to make the whole thing accessible. I use these videos to respond to questions I get during sticky topic check-ins that I do periodically throughout the class. These are low stakes, open-ended surveys where students tell me what concepts they really are struggling with.
Micro Lecture
Learning objective: Apply Coulomb's law to an arc or charge using polar coordinates.
This microlecture sits within a section on generally applying Coulomb's law to determine the electric field of a general charge distribution. We specifically derive out common shapes, but anything that cannot be easily categorized as a long straight line, a plane, a ring, disk, or sphere needs to be mapped out in integral form to solve. This requires using all different coordinate systems so this microlecture takes a deeper dive on how to problem solve using Coulomb's law in polar coordinates.
Students specifically request these long-form problem solving videos to help them understand how the problems are structured, so hopefully this helps them with their problem set-up and solving skills as well as deepening their understanding the of the electric field as a concept.