I believe letting my personality shine through the way I teach “humanizes” the online learning experience. One of the ways I have tried to do this is through my office hour sessions. I have developed some ways to inject a little more of my personality and enthusiasm for vertebrate life through additional activities the students can engage with at their discretion, including: Supplementary lectures exploring certain topics in the course in more detail, such as phylogenetic reconstruction methods Software tutorials such as Mendeley citation manager and using Google Scholar to locate and browse  primary sources Livestreaming my research activities, such as preparing vertebrate natural history specimens, and talking  with students about how they could perform similar activities at home with their dissection specimens Perhaps most importantly, guided pre-exam study sessions and post-exam review sessions.      None of these activities are required of course – my ...

It's that time of the semester again where students are feeling more burned out than ever. Consider implementing policies or course design changes to help support the well-being of your students. Here are four quick ways:  1. Use macro- and micro-affirmations in your course: You may have heard of microaggressions but have you heard of micro-affirmations (because they’re equally as important)? In their SABER/RISE seminar , Dr. Mica Estrada talks about how an inclusive and welcoming classroom is composed of low macro- and micro-aggressions and high macro- and micro-affirmations . Macro- and micro-affirmations are obvious acts and subtle or ambiguous cues of social inclusion, community, and respect for dignity. Some examples include: asking students how they are doing and listening to their responses, asking others for their opinions, recognizing the achievements of others, and just being - ‘nice ’. What macro- and micro-affirmations can you introduce into your classroom to build an...

Why are some courses a dynamic, meaningful, and lasting experience, while others inspire lukewarm engagement and results despite the instructor’s best efforts? In his excellent new book, Super Courses: The Future of Teaching and Learning , higher-education and pedagogy expert, Ken Bain, goes beyond typical course checklists and explores how teachers foster a natural critical learning environment, where activities and collaborations are designed around questions and challenges that students are intrinsically curious about and find deep and emotional value in solving. The book is filled with stories and syllabi of real-life examples of these super courses and begins with a concise analysis of 18 characteristics that were consistently observed in Bain’s research. Here are the 18 characteristics, paraphrased for brevity, and supplemented with examples that could be used in face-to-face, hybrid, or fully online courses: Core course design and policy: The course is centered around big, inte...