Episode 2 | Humanize your Instructor Bio

2 | Humanizing your Instructor Bio - powered by Happy Scribe

Hi, everybody, this is Camille. Welcome to Episode two. Thank you so much to those of you who listened to the first episode of this. I was so pleased to hear your comments and feedback and people who sent me questions to cover in the future. It really made me so happy that people are actually listening to this. So I really appreciate it. Before we get to today's question, I wanted to share a few key pieces of feedback that I got about the first episode.

Robert wrote to me and said that he thought it was important to mention that opening up the whole course and letting people work at their own speed is not just helpful in terms of planning and motivation and so forth, but it's also just good practice for helping people learn effectively.

And he mentions, especially people who are mature and motivated learners that already know what works best for them and they want to just do it. And I agree that was kind of underneath a lot of what I was saying, but I didn't overtly say that. And I think it's absolutely so true. Another piece of feedback I got from a few people was that they like the idea of that, and they have a concern that opening up all the modules in a course at once is going to lead to unnecessary questions and emails from students who are looking ahead.

And perhaps if they would just wait a little longer, they would answer their own questions. So people felt like they did not want to be overwhelmed, more overwhelmed than they already were with questions that were unnecessary. And I think that's an absolutely valid concern. I know that we have so much on our plates and the idea of having people email us about week 12 in week three just seems like the straw that broke the camel's back.

And my suggestion, if that's where you are and you think, well, this is maybe a thing, but I'm a little worried about the added burden or workload on my end, my suggestion would be to just try it out.

You can experiment with this for one course in one semester or trimester and see what happens.

It's been my experience with the people who are taking my classes that I very, very rarely get questions about weeks far in advance, unless it's something very valid that I would want to answer sooner rather than later.

So I have not found that it contributes to my workload in any excessive way. That may be different for you. So try it out and see what you notice and you can always go back to the way you were doing it before. Or you can do something in the middle, say maybe I'm going to open up three or four modules at a time and do it that way.

So that would be my suggestion.

Today's question is one that I got a few years ago, which is related to the topic of humanizing your course, your online course, making it feel more alive and more human. And this is a huge topic.

This is something I feel really, really passionately about. There's a lot of people who have been doing a lot of excellent work in this field, especially Michelle Packansky-Brock is somebody worth following on social media and elsewhere.

So today I thought that I would answer just a small piece of that question that is again relevant to the beginning of the semester or trimester.

And so today I want to talk about how to humanize your bio that you post either in your LMS or perhaps on your university or school website, because a lot of times this is one of the first things that students see. They'll go and look at it either before the course opens or when the course opens up. Many of us have it right there inside the learning management system. There's a section for your instructor bio.

So what I'd ask you to do today is just go and have a look at yours at some point this week, have a look and see what yours says. Many people, of course, want to highlight their educational background, maybe their research expertize and that sort of thing. And what I want you to look for today is are there any bits and pieces in your bio that show your human side something outside of work?

Because when the students read a bio, what they really want is something to connect to. Some of them may be interested in your research expertize or your degrees and your, you know, the topic that you're teaching: business and economics or whatever it is.

But most of them are not going to have a particular interest in that subject. But they do have an interest in you as a person. So I would tell people to think about what it's like when you go to a coffee party or a dinner party.

I mean, and there's a bunch of people there that you don't know and you find yourself talking to someone who you really don't know. Usually the conversation flounders a little bit until you find some area of connection. Maybe it's that you both have kids or maybe it's that, you know, so-and-so went to Poland this year and here some cool things about Poland or maybe it's that, you know, they have a habit of pickle making whatever it is, something where you can be like, well, that's really interesting.

I want to know more about that or I feel really more connected to you.

So find some some small thing that you can put into your instructor bio that shows your human side outside of teaching and school. I put in my bio that I like to go shopping at thrift stores and garage sales and that I love grapefruits.

and I find just having that small non-work related thing, it just helps students feel a little bit more connected.

It's also a good time to check and make sure that everything in your bio is up to date.

Sometimes you find that your bio says your children are two and four and now they're 10 and 12 or, you know, you've been promoted or you have a different role in the university or whatever it is. So this is a good time to do that as well. So that's my very small tip for today, is have a look at your bio and refresh it if needed as the trimester begins. Lastly, I wanted to share something that's happening tomorrow actually if you're listening to this on the day it's released. Tomorrow, January 8th is the first day of a series produced by the Teaching and Learning Exchange at the University of the Arts in London.

And this is a seminar series called Teaching Complexity. It's Free. And Bonnie Stewart is I'm not exactly sure of her role.

I believe she's holding it or she's participating in most of them. So the one there's a free webinar tomorrow called Connected Teaching. And I thought that it might be of interest to the people who listen to this. So I'll put a link to it in the show notes. And there's a bunch of other sessions as part of the series coming up over the next few months. There's one on openness and prestige. There's one on complexity and creativity and there's one on inclusive spaces.

So you can register for all of those at the same place. And I believe they will be recorded. So if you're listening to this late or you just can't make it tomorrow, you could always listen to the recording and perhaps attend some of the other sessions. So I hope that's helpful.

As usual, please send me your comments and questions. You can email Thinking of you podcast at Gmail dot com or go to the website, which I'll link below and submit a comment or question there. Thanks so much. Take care.