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Laying Out the Welcome Mat�with a humanized course card �and homepage

FALL INTO HUMANIZED ONLINE TEACHING: A PATHWAY TO EQUITY

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Spread the word!

ATTENDANCE OPTIONS

FALL INTO HUMANIZED ONLINE TEACHING: A PATHWAY TO EQUITY

October 8

October 22

November 5

November 19

Attend a La Carte - Free!

Open to the public

Earn a Digital Badge - $150 �Open to all California Community College faculty and staff. Registration closes today, 9/24!

Learn more at: https://onlinenetworkofeducators.org/fallintohumanizing/

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Hope to see you on October 8th!

9:00-10:00am PT - Bearing Witness as an Act of Love with Dr. Mays Imad

10:30-12:00 PT - Identifying Your High Opportunity Students with a Getting to Know You Survey with Michelle Pacansky-Brock

To register, go to: https://onlinenetworkofeducators.org/fallintohumanizing/

Dr. Mays Imad�Pima Community College

Dr. Imad is a neuroscientist whose current research focuses on stress, self-awareness, advocacy, and classroom community, and how these impact student learning and success.

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Yes! This will be recorded.

Go to: https://onlinenetworkofeducators.org/fallintohumanizing/
Click on the “View the Archives” button.

The captioned recording will be available in a few days, along with the slides. ��Follow these steps to locate and access the archive:

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Housekeeping

Q&A

CHAT

CAPTIONS

Engage with other attendees. Share reflections, resources.

Send Questions for Michelle to answer at our Q&A time.

Click on CC to enable Zoom’s live transcriptioning on your screen.

Toggle your chat to Everyone.

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Laying Out the Welcome Mat�with a humanized course card �and homepage

FALL INTO HUMANIZED ONLINE TEACHING: A PATHWAY TO EQUITY

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Our Agenda for Today

LEAN IN

WARM UP

ENGAGE

COOL DOWN

Unpacking Perfectionism

Presentation

Hands-on: Get started on your humanized homepage.

You will need to be logged in to your Canvas course (or sandbox �if you are in the digital badge cohort).

Discussion

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Unpacking Perfectionism

Warm-Up

In our last warm-up together, we reflected on the values of white dominant culture, aiming to identify how they influence the way we design and teach our classes. One of those values is perfectionism. From my 12+ years working with and supporting college professors, perfectionism is, hands-down, one of the greatest cultural barriers that interferes with innovations in teaching. Perfectionism leads to constant comparing of ourselves to others and it prevents us from recognizing that we are good enough the way we are. It prevents us from looking back and recognizing our growth over time. It keeps us in a perpetual state of feeling inadequate, which is exhausting and dehumanizing. Building self-awareness of the influence of perfectionism in our lives can be empowering, because once we see it and can name it, we can start to pushback on it.

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

For today’s warm, up I’d like to read an brief excerpt from a book titled The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo. As I read, I invite you to close your eyes and focus on my words or focus on the image on your screen. I also invite you to change your body position to ensure you are comfortable.

This is titled “The Pain of Becoming.”

“We do ourselves a great disservice by judging where we are in comparison to some final destination. This is one of the pains of aspiring to become something: the stage of development we are in is always seen against the imagined landscape of what we are striving for. So where we are – though closer all the time – is never quite enough.

The simple rose, at each moment of its slow blossoming, is as open as it can be. The same is true of our lives. In each stage of our unfolding, we are stretched as possible. For the human heart is quite slow to blossom, and is only seen as lacking when compared to the imagined [person] we’d like to become.

It helps to see ourselves as flowers. If a flower were to push itself to open faster, which it can’t, it would tear. Yet we humans can and often do push ourselves. Often we tear in places no one can see. When we push ourselves to unfold faster or more deeply than is natural, we thwart ourselves. For nature takes time, and most of our problems of will stem from impatience.

Perhaps one of the hardest remedies to accept for our pain of becoming is that wherever we are in our path – no matter how flawed or incomplete – is a blossoming unto itself. However much we’ve done at the end of the day is more than enough…” (p. 251)

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Please take 2-minutes to quietly reflect or write about what’s resonating with you.

Warm-Up

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Laying out the Welcome Mat with a Humanized Course Card and Homepage

Lean In

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A learning community.

Our Goal

When you’re teaching online, what do you look for to identify whether a student is “engaged”?

How do you know if a student is NOT engaged?

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A learning community.

Trust starts with the first click.

A community is something that a person has to want to be part of. In order to want to be part of a community, a person must feel trusted and valued for who they are and what they bring to the table. From my experiences when faculty teach online, most of them want to build a learning community. But in our practices, too often we are taught to start with adding discussions or some other interactive activity to a course. Or worse, we are taught to interact with our students because it’s a legal requirement. That’s not the right place to start.

Community, as we already stated, starts with trust and belonging. Simply adding a discussion to a class, depending on many factors, could promote belonging for some students. But for others, who are starting your course from a place of distrust, it will not reap benefits.

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Photo by Darli Donizete from Pexels

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Further reading: Rendón, L. (2009) Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy, Stylus Publishing.

Image by Michelle Pacansky-Brock, CC-BY-NC

Because learning occurs in the intersection of thinking and feeling. As Antonio Demasio, a leading neuroscientist, has said, “We are not thinking machines. We are feeling machines that think.” Laura Rendon, whose scholarly work focuses on the access, retention and graduation of low-income, first-generation college students, has written about this in her book, Sentipensanted (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy.

Rendon points out that indigenous cultures are often rooted in the concept of duality, which recognizes the need to nurture the whole self. Rendon’s work helps us to understand the LEARNING, as we know it in higher education, is a socially constructed notion. It is part of white dominant culture. Acknowledging the role of feelings in learning and designing our classes around that concept, empowers and validates our students that are otherwise left out. Supporting emotions in learning is a tenet of anti-racist teaching.

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Slide by Michelle Pacansky-Brock, CC-BY-NC

“... emotions are not just messy toddlers in a china shop, running around breaking and obscuring delicate cognitive glassware. Instead, they are more like the shelves underlying the glassware; without them cognition has less support.”

Mary Helen Immordino-Yang & Antonio Demasio

We Feel, Therefore We Learn: The Relevance of Affective Social Neuroscience to Education

Photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST on Unsplash. Slide by Michelle Pacansky-Brock, CC-BY-NC

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Cognitive Underminers

Stereotype Threat

Verschelden, C. (2017). Bandwidth recovery: Helping students reclaim cognitive resources lost to poverty, racism, and social marginalization. Stylus & AACU.�Aguilar, L. Walton, G. & Wieman, C. (2014). Psychological insights for improved physics teaching. Physics Today.

Imposter Syndrome

Belongingness Uncertainty

These affect everyone but they disproportionately impact students from non-dominant groups (Black, Latinx, Indigenous, other students of color; LGBTQIA students; low income students; women in STEM; older students; students with disabilities; students who speak English as a 2nd/3rd language).

In our first session with Claude Steele, we considered the detrimental affect of stereotype threat on intellectual performance. Stereotype threat is a type of cognitive underminer (a phrase used by Cia Verschelden in her book, Bandwidth Recover). Cognitive underminers prevent students from performing to their full potential.

CLICK

Imposter syndrome and Belongingness Uncertainty are two more cognitive underminers that block a person’s ability to achieve what they are capable of.

Stereotype threat can result in lower test scores, disengagement, and sudden withdrawal from a class. Imposter syndrome causes a person to feel like a fraud – like they’re unworthy of achievement – and can prevent a person from applying for a promotion or trying new things. Belongingness uncertainty is a very generalized experience that everyone experiences and is worsened by social isolation. Warm, encouraging invitations to connect with others mitigate belongingness uncertainty. Becoming educated about and discussing imposter syndrome is shown to mitigate it. And creating identity safe environments and fostering growth mindset are two proven ways to minimize stereotype threat.

Everyone (including me and all of you) is susceptible to these social psychological phenomena. But research shows that they affect people from non-dominant identity groups more severely.

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Photo by Nikita Taparia on Unsplash

So, as online educators, when we view our Canvas dashboards and see who has logged in, who has responded to a discussion, who has submitted their assignments (which are all important things we need to do) … we need to also look at those who have not done those things. And recognize that while we may take these as cues of “disengagement,” they may be the result of cognitive underminers.

Creating an environment where everyone belongs is where we must start to build a learning community. And, in case you weren’t with us for our last session, I want to be very clear about what belonging is and what it isn’t. Belonging is not the same as fitting in. Belonging occurs when a person valued and respected for their true authentic self. Fitting in is when a person has to change who they are to be accepted (Brene Brown, Braving the Wilderness).

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California Community Colleges

The CCC is the largest system of higher education in the nation
We serve 2.1 million students
2 out of 3 students is a person of color

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Average 2015-16 Online Course Success Rate

California Community Colleges (CCCs)

Source: 2017 CCC Distance Education Report, California Community College Chancellor’s Office.

66%

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Disaggregated Online Course Success Rates, 2015-2016

California Community Colleges (CCCs)

White

Asian

African American

American Indian/Native American

Hispanic

Pacific Islander

Average Statewide Success Rate for online courses 66%

Source: 2017 CCC Distance Education Report, California Community College Chancellor’s Office.

But when disaggregate our success rates by race/ethnicity, a very different story is told. While success rates are going up overall, only our White and Asian students are succeeding above the statewide average (designated by the horizontal line). You see the groups represented in blue? The ones that are all below the statewide average? Those groups represent 67% of our students. Two out of three of our students are African American or Black, American Indian/Native American, Hispanice, or Pacific Islander.

That’s an example of how being race conscious, as opposed to color blind, changes how we approach our work.

This data is not data to be proud of. But it’s not data to hide either. It’s important to talk about it and use it to guide changes in our work. This is a story we need to keep at the center of everything we are doing as online educators, which is all of us now.

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California Community Colleges

Close Equity Gaps

To close equity gaps, we must be race conscious, not color blind. And we must intentionally design and teach psychologically and socially inclusive online courses.

Doing so requires knowledge of social psychology and culturally responsive pedagogy and possess digital fluencies. These are not skills that most college professors possess. This is a gap that must be filled by professional development.

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Microaffirmations are kindness cues of social inclusion.

They are like marbles in a jar of trust. They accumulate over time.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Slide by Fabiola Torres, CC-BY-NC

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8 Elements of Humanized Online Teaching

Research-based
Like recipes for you to follow/adapt/make your own
Intended to be implemented with warm demander pedagogy (Kleinfeld)

The 8 elements of humanized online teaching were developed with funds from the California Education Learning Lab and are shared with a Creative Commons, Attribution, Non-Commercial (CC-BY-NC) license. You are free to use or adapt the elements for non-commercial purposes provided you attribute the authors, Michelle Pacansky-Brock, Mike Smedshammer, Kim Vincent-Layton.

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Wk 1

Wk 2

Wk 3

Registration

Slide by Michelle Pacansky-Brock, CC-BY-NC

Liquid Syllabus

Humanized Course Card�& Homepage

When we approach our teaching we obviously need to focus on what we do as instructors but when we do that, we needs to center our student’s experiences. We need to be critically thinking about who our students are and how our design, content, and materials will influenced them.

One way we can do this is to think about the flow of a course experience. We often think about it starting on day one but for students -- just like for faculty -- it starts well before that. The moment a student registers for your class, they are your student. They are thinking about what you are going to be like as an instructor. They are thinking about what your class will be like. And in our first session, we considered how a Liquid Syllabus can be used as a kindness cue of social inclusion. A public, mobile-friendly, beautiful website with a warm, brief welcome video and asset-based language sends a powerful cue to a student. And imagine if that liquid syllabus link went one step further -- what if a student could click on it when they are perusing the class schedule? Something to consider.

In this session we are building on that foundation and shifting our focus to week one of an online class. We are looking at how we can use a course card and homepage in Canvas as a way to lay out the welcome mat.

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Kizilcec, R. F. & Saltarelli, A. J. (2019, May). Psychologically inclusive design, [Paper presentation]. CHI, ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

Research: Visual Cues of Inclusion Matter in Online Classes

Original Course Image

Gender Inclusive Course Image

In a research study, a gender-inclusive image on an advertisement for a STEM MOOC "increased the click-through rate among women but not men by 26% (N=209,000)" (Kizilcec & Saltarelli, 2019). �
In the same study, adding a gender-inclusive course image and inclusivity statement to the enrollment page "raised the proportion of women enrolling in a STEM course by up to 18% (N=63,000)."

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Your Canvas Course Card Can Be a Visual Cue of Inclusion for Students from Minoritized Groups

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View the Infographic

How to Add a Humanized Course Card in Canvas

Locate an image that sends a cue of inclusion to students from one or more minoritized groups
Click on Settings in the course navigation menu.
In the Course Details tab, click on Choose Image.
Select an image that relates to your course in some way and sends a warm, inviting cue to students. View this Canvas Guide for tips on selecting an image from Unsplash. If you are struggling to find just the right image, we encourage you to explore the following image databases too.

Nappy.co High res photos of Black and brown people.
Women of Color in Tech - Re-use requires attribution to #WOCinTech Chat or wocintechchat.com
Gender Spectrum Collection

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Research: Thin Slicing (Ambady)

Viewing a small selection of an interaction results in an accurate conclusion about the observed person’s “macro traits”�

Macro traits include: liking, trust, competence, dominance, nervousness, warmth, likability, expressiveness, sympathy, and politeness�

Viewing a 30-second silent video clip of a professor accurately predicted end-of-the term instructor evaluations.

For more information: Thin Slices & First Impressions by Jeff Thompson, Psychology Today.

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

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View the Infographic

A Humanized Homepage

Goals:

Is visually pleasing
Greets students with your warm, human presence
Clearly guides students to their next step
Provides relevant and concise information

Includes:

A banner with sufficient color contrast and alt-text
A brief video with accurate captions or friendly photograph of you
A “Start Here” link that takes students to their first module
Minimal links and text

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View the Infographic

Choose a Humanized Homepage Template

Template #1

Template #2

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View the Infographic

How to Create Your Humanized Homepage

Step 1: Find the template in Canvas Commons & import it into your course �

Step 2: Create your course banner in Canva�

Step 3: Customize your homepage

Add your banner to your homepage with alt-text and make it responsive
Embed your video or photo into your homepage.
Edit the links on your homepage �

Step 4: Set your homepage in Canvas.

Overview of steps

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Step 1a: Find the template in Canvas Commons

Open the Canvas course into which you want to import the template
From the left-hand global navigation bar, select Commons (we recommend right-clicking with your mouse or Control+Click on your keyboard and selecting Open in a New Tab).
When the Commons opens, enter FIHOT into the search box at the top
You will see Home Page Example 1 and Homepage Example 2 appear in the results. Click on the one you'd like to import. This will open the preview.

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View the Infographic

Step 1b: Import the template into your Canvas Course

In Commons with the preview of the template open, select the blue Import/Download button on the right.
Search for your course title in the list of courses and select it.
Scroll to the bottom of the list and select Import into Course.
Return to your course.
In your course, click on Pages and then select View all pages. Once the import is complete, you will find your homepage here. Try refreshing your browser page if it has not yet appeared.
Customize the template. Take time to read the highlighted text we've provided on the template page. It will help guide you through the customization process.

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View the Infographic

Step 2a: Create your free Canva education account

If you sign up with your .edu email address, Canva will upgrade your account for free!

Go to Canva.com
From the menu at the top, choose Plans
From the dropdown menu, choose Education
Under teachers, select Sign up now. Be sure to sign up using an email address that ends in .edu.
To verify your account, you’ll be prompted to enter a code that Canva will email to you.

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View the Infographic

Step 2b: Create your banner in Canva

Follow these steps or view the 9-minute video to the right.

Log into Canva
Search for Canvas Banner
Select one of the templates
Edit the template (if you decide to switch to a different template, you may select one from the left column)
Customize your banner
Download your banner

If your design has multiple pages, deselect All Pages and select just the page number you’d like to download.
Select Download
Under File Type, select .PNG
Select Download

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View the Infographic

Step 3a: Add your banner with alt-text & make it responsive

Please view this 4 minute 21 second video to learn how to complete this step.

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View the Infographic

Step 3b: Embed your video or friendly photo of you

If your video is hosted on Youtube, there are two ways to embed it in Canvas: auto-embed (add the YouTube link) and manual embed (add the YouTube html code). The manual embed is advised, as the auto-embed option creates accessibility concerns.

To learn how to do both, please view the 6-minute video to the right.

If you are uploading a photo, please follow the same steps in Step 4: Add your banner.

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View the Infographic

Step 3c: Edit The Links On Your Homepage

You will need to re-link many of the links on your homepage template. This can easily be done using the Canvas rich content editor. Please view this 2 1/2 minute video to learn the appropriate way to edit your links.

Yep! There's a right way to add links that ensures you links will copy over from course to course and a wrong way that will result in broken links.

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View the Infographic

Step 4: Set Your Homepage

Go to Pages and select View all Pages.
Locate the page titled Home.
Confirm that the page is published. If not, publish it.
Click on the 3 vertical dots next to the green published icon.
From the dropdown menu, select Use as Front Page.
In the course navigation menu, select Home.
In the right column, select Choose Home Page.
From the Choose Course Home Page box, select Pages Front Page.
Select Save.

Follow these steps to select your new page as your Course Home Page.

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Import your template from Canvas Commons Stay right here!
2. Create a banner in Canva Leave and go to: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/99471125395
3. Customize your homepage in Canvas Leave and go to: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/98156878807
4. Digital badge cohort workgroup Leave and go to: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/95711499863

Shawn

Helen

Cheryl

Michelle

Engage

Choose your adventure!

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How did that go?

What questions do you have?�

Cool Down

If you’d like to speak with your mic, select “Raise Hand” in the Zoom toolbar below.

When you leave the session, please complete the brief survey that will appear.

We appreciate your input!

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A learning community.

First time a student logs into your course.

You have absolutely no idea what people are capable of until you put them in a situation where they can flourish.

Shawna Rodabaugh

Fayetteville Technical Community College

On Teaching in Higher Ed Podcast, Episode 379: Reducing Fear in Learning Contexts

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Source: 2017 CCC Distance Education Report, California Community College Chancellor’s Office.