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.
Coming into Humanizing STEM I was honestly feeling burnt out on online teaching. My courses had kind of stagnated over the last couple of semesters. While I continued to do what I had always done, trying to create a welcoming environment through "getting to know you" type assignments (and sharing things about myself), giving warm, actionable feedback, etc., I was kind of just going through the motions. I wasn't feeling as connected to my students as I had in earlier semesters that I was teaching online. I was out of ideas for improvements to make. I didn't know anything about cultural mismatches and how that could be affecting my students. I was thinking of seeing if I could just get in person classes.
After taking Humanizing STEM, I feel reinvigorated about teaching online. I am excited to try the new ideas that I learned through this course. I am making a list of things that I would like to do in my classes in the future. I am cognizant of the need to try and limit student's feelings of imposter syndrome and belongingness uncertainty, and I think that improvements that I am planning will help with that.
I plan to use several of the items that we made in my courses for Spring 2024! I look forward to using Adobe express to make Bumper Videos that I think will spice things up, and really help students with some difficult concepts. I actually think this will be a game changer for a lot of students. Demonstrating a difficult concept outside of the regular narrated PowerPoint will highlight it, and students will pay more attention to it. I feel the same way about Microlectures. I feel that this will help with imposter syndrome because it will lead to greater success with difficult material.
I will definitely be using Google Sites to make my liquid syllabus from now on. It just looks so much nicer than what I can do in Canvas, and since I can share a link that is outside of Canvas, I can get it out a bit earlier before my Canvas shell is entirely ready.
I usually send a welcome email to my students a few day before the start of the semester which will include a link to my liquid syllabus. I think that my students will find the liquid syllabus helpful and welcoming (with my intro video) without being too overwhelming. It will give them what they need to get started for the first week of class. I think they will see my teaching philosophy and what they can expect of me and know that I care about them and their learning. I hope it will make them feel that they want to hold up their end of our pact. They will also know that they have access to services that they may need or that they may not know about but could really use, which will help them to feel supported, and potentially head off difficulties that could affect them during the semester.
I chose this image for my course card for a couple of reasons. The first is it is very cute! I think it will make students smile to see this gecko looking sweetly at them. I also chose it because I studied reptiles in grad school and so it represents that aspect of who I am from the very first time they enter the Canvas shell.
My homepage welcomes students with a biology themed banner that helps convey my love of living things. I enthusiastically introduce myself and immediately share how to reach me and my willingness to meet with them over Zoom to help them with anything, which serves as a kindness cue. I hope this demonstrates that I care about them and their success in my class.
This getting to know you survey shows that I care about what students want and need to be successful in this class. It acts as a kindness cue by demonstrating that I want to know about them personally. It also shows that I understand that they have a life outside of school. We are all human and multi-dimensional.
I've been using a Getting to Know you Survey for several years, and I really do use the information from it regularly, and I plan to continue to keep the information in Notes in Canvas.
I really like this ice-breaker! I used the example that was shared in this course about sharing an object that exemplifies your values. I am very excited to use this next semester to see what students share! I feel like it will really create a sense of belonging, much more so than my current icebreaker. Students will really see things that they have in common, but also what others place value in, and why they do. It will help students understand each others perspectives better. I believe it will foster a sense connection that will mitigate belongingness uncertainty.
This Bumper Video goes over a type of genetics problem that students often struggle with on their heredity practice problems, sex-linked traits. I go over how to determine the gametes that parents can produce and how to properly use them in a Punnett Square to determine the probability of an offspring having the sex-linked trait.
I think that this will really help the students improve on this type of problem because it walks them through the process. It is engaging and since it is a separate short video, the material will stand out in their minds and make them more likely to retain it.
This microlecture focusses in on particular difficulties faced by small populations (such as endangered species) that don't really affect large populations. The objective here is that students will be able to summarize the four mechanisms discussed that lead to non-adaptive evolution.
I think by having this as microlecture, the students will be more likely to remember these mechanisms and that they specifically impact small populations. This is a lesson in evolution, but also population ecology, so it connects to future material.
