Events

Moving from a “weed out” culture to a culture of care

Join us on May 4, 2022 for a free, Humanizing Online STEM Summit. This online event is open to the public and features science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) faculty and faculty support specialists’ experiences with humanized online teaching. You will also learn about data that is revealing the influence the Humanizing Online STEM Academy – a free, adoptable professional development program – is having on educators and online students in California.

Humanizing Online STEM is a project funded by the California Education Learning Lab to make online undergraduate STEM courses more equitable by strengthening instructor-student relationships at a distance. The Humanizing Online STEM Academy is a 6-week online professional development program available in the Canvas Commons for you to adopt (just search for #HumanizingSTEM). Attend the Summit with your colleagues to learn more!

What is the data showing us about humanizing in online STEM courses?

Dr. Michelle Pacansky-Brock, Foothill DeAnza Community College District
Dr. Di Xu, UC Irvine

Drs. Michelle Pacansky-Brock and Di Xu present an overview of humanizing and provide a glimpse of the impacts on faculty and online students we are seeing in the preliminary research findings. To receive a copy of the preliminary research brief, complete the Toolkit Request Form.

Creating Pathways of Kindness and Inclusion in STEM Education

Keynote Speaker, Dr. Mica Estrada

Our current societal reality provides opportunities to change patterns of exclusion and inclusion in STEM. Traditional STEM education has focused on providing knowledge as the way to integrate people into an academic community, but data shows that not all people became equally integrated into this academic community, despite knowledge acquisition. With this in mind, Dr. Estrada will describe findings from her research program in which she has longitudinally tracked and examined what types of mentorship, training experiences and supports result in students integrating into their professional fields and persisting in STEM career pathways.  Her research focuses on the experiences of persons historically excluded because of ethnicity and race.  Further, she will describe practical actions that educators and institutions can take to provide kindness cues that affirm social inclusion. These actions can positively impact the integration experience for historically underrepresented college students, faculty and administrators in STEM training and professional settings.

Exploring the potential, impact, and challenges of humanizing

This panel is comprised of Humanizing Online STEM Academy alumni. The panelists discuss how their professional learning takeaways from the Academy have influenced them as humans and as educators.

Panelists include:

• Angelica Cortes, Mathematics Faculty, Modesto Junior College
• Benny Ng, Chemistry Faculty, CSU Channel Islands & Los Angeles Pierce College  
• Paula Schales, Instructional Designer, Foothill College
• Roxann Schroeder, Biology and Environmental Science & Management Faculty, Cal Poly Humboldt
• Young Sub Kwon, Kinesiology Faculty, Cal Poly Humboldt
• Michelle Pacansky-Brock (moderator – Lead PI, Foothill DeAnza Community College District

This event is brought to you by the California Education Learning Lab with support from the California Virtual Campus. The grant project is administered by Foothill DeAnza Community College District with support from Foothill College, Modesto Junior College, and Cal Poly Humboldt.