Humanize it.
Teaching online requires purposeful and explicit consideration for building relationships and connecting students with one another.
Celebrate diversity
At Mason, diversity is our strength. Because we offer 100% online courses, we are able to recruit across our state of Virginia, Nationally, and Internationally in order to bring a diverse group of teachers together to learn together. I use the diverse nature of our students to discuss topics in other school divisions, states, and international education. Their unique perspectives are strengths in my courses.
Build purposeful groups
Group work is an integral part of the courses in my program, however, students are sometimes nervous about how they are grouped. In order to personalize the group work experience, I survey them on their learner needs and group them with similar partners.
Celebrate the whole student
Humanizing online classrooms begins with acknowledging that students are unique and that they come to your class with varied experiences, confidence, and expectations. I begin each and every class with this slide as a reminder to students that I care about them, and that they are important to our community.
Share Successes
Every class begins with successes and celebrations - a space to share small or life changing events and to build community.
Make it available
Technology accessibility is the first step in humanizing online courses. I have advocated for open access by using free applications that are available across devices. There is never an advantage to purchasing expensive computers or software, every tool I use is accessible on an entry level Chromebook.
Be a model
As the world entered a global pandemic, schools closed and teachers reached out to me for support with how to teach online synchronously. This student thanked me for the modeling that I did in a previous class as it helped her to navigate these difficult times.
Be Inclusive
Inclusiveness is a cornerstone to great teaching. On day 1, students teach us their name with emphasis on correct pronunciation and pride in their preferred names, pronouns, and cultural representations. Each week, we share successes and celebrations with an emphasis on the unique celebrations of each student.
Be Accessible
Accessibility is at the heart of my teaching. As someone who has both a visual and auditory impairment, I am hyper aware of how simple things like closed captioning make a difference. I am not perfect, and will on a rare occasion forget to made these accommodations, but what sets me apart is that I stop the video, acknowledge the inaccessibility, and correct the mistake before implementing the video in the next class. This is vital, because too often, students who do not need the accommodation get unfair advantages when these steps are forgotten.