Free Humanizing Online STEM Summit on Wed, May 4th!

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

Wednesday, May 4, 2022
8:30 am – 12:00 pm PT
Register now!

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. Our website, HumanizeOL.org, is a resource to learn more about the Humanizing Online STEM Academy –– a free, openly-licensed professional development program –– and explore what we are learning from the data we’ve collected.

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Mica Estrada

Creating Pathways of Kindness and Inclusion in STEM Education

Our current societal reality provides opportunities to change patterns of exclusion and inclusion in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (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.

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