Implementing Open Educational Resources (OER) into Your Course

This article is the third part in our series on OER. You can read more about Open Educational Resources and Affordable Educational Resources in part one and two alternative models for textbooks, Inclusive Access and Equitable Access, in part two.

I’m ready to adopt an Open Educational Resource (OER) – how do I find a text?

First, realize that OER don’t have to be a formal textbook, although often they are. OER can be pieces of textbooks that you use in conjunction with each other. They can be a Canvas course, a module, or a series of resources that meet your learning outcomes and the topics you need to ensure your students are meeting the learning outcomes. They could even be podcasts, films, and websites. This broadens the field of where to find OER. So where do you start?

  • Start with the librarians on your campus. Librarians are experts in locating materials and can make the search easier.
  • Use the libguide created by the library about materials you already have access to that can be used as part of an OER course.
  • Use one of the many repositories available online that offer the distinct types of resources mentioned above. College of the Canyons maintains an up-to-date OER/Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Repository which is a good jumping-off point.

Can I create my own OER?

An option for integrating OER into your course is creating your own materials. Creating your own materials doesn’t necessarily mean writing a textbook. Open Educational Resources can be any of the items below or some combination thereof.

  1. Written textbook
  2. Videos
  3. Curated articles that are openly licensed
  4. Podcasts
  5. Curated textbook chapters taken from openly licensed books
  6. Media you create yourself

As you begin searching, you may decide you want help creating and licensing your materials. As mentioned earlier, the library is a great place to start. The library may be able to offer significant resources to help you create your OER, so be sure to reach out and see what support is available.

Ready to get started?

If you’re interested in getting started on creating low or no-cost resources for your class or just want to get some more information, you can reach out to Carli Reinecke, the OER Librarian to get started with your project.

Resources

Intro to Open Educational Resources and Affordable Educational Resources

What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?

You will find multiple definitions of OER, but for our use, we will focus on the 2017 definition from UNESCO, Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.” While OER used to be difficult to find and were only available for the most common general education courses, more and more professors are creating the materials they would like for their classes and then offering those resources to other educators at no cost.

For materials to be considered Open Educational Resources, there is no cost to use the materials — either for the student, the faculty member, or the university involved. There is an alternative to this model, Affordable Educational Resources, which will be discussed below. Ideally, Open Educational Resources will have an open license. An open license has a 5Rs framework, as proposed by David Wiley. A completely open license allows the user to do all of the following:

  • Reuse: Share content as-is
  • Revise: Content can be adapted, revised, or modified
  • Remix: Content can be combined with other material to create new content
  • Redistribute: Share the original, revised, or remixed versions with others
  • Retain: the right to make, own, and control copies of the content

While open licenses are ideal, many faculty creators choose a Creative Commons license which offers some rights to those who choose to adopt the OER. Creative Commons licenses work alongside copyright, where it makes transparent to the user how they can use, modify, or distribute the work.

Why choose OER?

The most obvious reason for making the choice to switch to OER is the cost savings to students. As of Spring 2024, UWGB instructors have saved 1957 students $240,442. This represents 34 instructors who have participated in the formal OER program. In addition to this obvious benefit to students, the reasons instructors choose to use OER can be any or all of the following:

  • Increase equity
  • Allow for customization
  • Improve access to information
  • Avoid copyright issues
  • Increase representation and diversity in course resources
  • Meet changing learning outcomes

What’s the difference between OER and AER?

Open Educational Resources are explained in detail in the previous section. What we have not explored yet are Affordable Educational Resources (AER). Many of the textbooks our students are asked to purchase for their classes cost in the hundreds of dollars. Because of limited resources or lack of financial aid, students may attempt to take the course without purchasing the text or might not be able to get the text until weeks into the course. While affordable educational resources might have a cost associated, it is a much more manageable cost. AER means something different at every university. At UWGB, the cost is $50 or less for the total cost of resources purchased by the student for one class. There are other distinctions between OER and AER. This video explains them succinctly.

Want more information? Contact the UWGB OER librarian, Carli Reinecke.

Event Follow-Up: “Language Inclusivity at UWGB”

What language practices do your students bring to our UWGB community? How do you value and sustain those language practices in your classrooms and other interactions with students? This follow-up to the “Language Inclusivity at UWGB” workshop led by Dr. Cory Mathieu, 2022-23 EDI Consultant, on April 14, 2023, includes the session recording, an event summary, key takeaways, and resources for further reading.

Session Recording (April 14, 2023)

Event Summary

Text by Edith Mendez and Cory Mathieu

Language is fundamental to the teaching and learning that occurs in every classroom at UWGB. All academic content is construed by language. However, our students use language to not only communicate academic concepts and ideas, but also as a representation of their identity, their culture, and their sense of belonging. When our students’ language practices ­– the myriad ways they use language ­– are not upheld, uplifted, and valued in our classrooms, they can feel that they themselves are unwelcome or unaccepted in our academic spaces.

Standard language ideologies, or beliefs that certain varieties of language are more academic, more intelligent, or, simply, more correct, are deeply ingrained in our society and, especially, in academia. Students who do not speak or write ‘standard English’ are often expected to adjust their language practices to be successful, both in academics and beyond. This causes many issues, not only because their language is deemed inferior but because of the intersectionality of language and identity. Our students’ character, who they are as individuals, is then also linked to these negative connotations. Considerable research has shown that students of color and multilingual students are most frequently affected by these ideologies as their language practices are most regularly deemed to be ‘non-standard’ by those in positions of power.

Through this workshop, we further describe and debunk standard language ideologies while also offering insight as to how this issue is actively affecting UWGB students, not only academically but in terms of their identities and sense of belonging. We do so in order to offer alternative perspectives, policies, practices that are linguistically inclusive, actively welcoming and valuing the language, experiences, knowledge, capabilities, and strengths all students bring to our classrooms.

Key Takeaways

  • “Standard English” is a myth! (Lippi-Green, 2012)
    • All languages that are spoken within the U.S. and are acquired as first languages are
      • Linguistically acceptable
      • Grammatical
    • Standard English is the variety that has been afforded power and status (Lippi-Green, 2012)​.
      • ‘White mainstream English’
  • Issue with appropriateness-based approach to education
    • Standard language is a language of power, but it does not provide power to everyone.
      • Students of color will always be seen as people of color and treated as such, regardless of how they speak
  • Language is central to identity
    • Identity is central to a sense of belonging
      • Sense of belonging is central to learning
  • If students do not feel as if they belong, they may be negatively impacted
    • Academically
    • As Individuals
      • Mentally
      • Emotionally
  • There are things you can do to make each and every one of the students that walk through your door feel welcomed, valued, capable, and respected
    • Language inclusivity syllabus statement
    • Varied performance assessments with different audiences to allow for content to be expressed through different language varieties and registers
    • Explicit teaching of language and genres expected of students
    • Critical discussions about language use in your content area – why do we use and expect the language that we do? Who determined and continues to determine what language is acceptable or not in this discipline?

Further Reading

Scaffolding for Online Learning

As the end of the semester approaches and you begin to review the curricular structure of your courses in the near future, you may recognize the need for more robust scaffolding in content design regarding the online modality. Before reviewing and modifying your course in this capacity, it is important to know what scaffolding is, and why it is important for student learning. Scaffolding, as EdGlossary defines it in education, refers to ‘a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process’. Ultimately, the goal of scaffolding is to give students building blocks of learning that lead to better retention and acquisition of knowledge.

The most common place to start with scaffolding that can provide a significant impact is in larger assignments or assessments. A good ‘rule of thumb’ is to begin with the tasks that take a significant portion of time and energy. Breaking an assessment into smaller subtasks creates natural checkpoints for the students to gauge their understanding. This also allows you as the teacher to gain insight into how their knowledge acquisition is going and allows you to slightly alter course if the learning is not going as first imagined – check out CATL’s blog post on ‘small teaching’ for more information on that topic.

For example, if you are requiring students to ultimately create a final essay project, you could create a scaffolded or sequenced set of checkpoints to build towards the final assignment’s conclusion. The University of Michigan’s Center for Writing has a comprehensive breakdown of this sequencing:

  1. Pre-Writing: including proposals, work-in-progress presentations, and research summaries
  2. Writing: including counterarguments, notes, and drafts
  3. Revision: including peer reviews, conferences, and revision plans

The introduction of any of these concepts in an online environment requires intentionality and planning, while ensuring the students remain highly engaged throughout the process. As the students revise their papers, scheduling individual conferences, peer reviews (via online conferences, social annotations via Hypothesis, or via Canvas), and revision plans can all provide beneficial steps for a scaffolded approach to a final essay project. To ensure that the students are understanding what is required of them, be certain that you answer such critical questions as:

  • How are students able to know that they completed the steps required, and how will they know they have completed it satisfactorily?
  • How will you make the connections between the scaffolded activities and the end product clear as students progress systematically through the courses?
  • Have you clearly identified opportunities for students, particularly in the online modality, to get together remotely for feedback, thought-partnering, and/or review?

Another version of scaffolding in the online modality has to do with the structuring of how students gain an understanding of the content. The University of Buffalo’s Office of Curriculum, Assessment, and Teaching Transformation takes the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) model and utilizes it in both a standard classroom, as well as a ‘flipped classroom’ environment. The GRR model focuses on an ‘I Do’, ‘We Do’, ‘You Do’ framework that is very popular in educational scaffolding. This framework for scaffolding could be centered around a larger assignment or exam, but it does not necessarily need to be. The GRR model of scaffolding could also be utilized when breaking down a larger concept for students. See how this model could potentially be utilized in a chemistry lesson surrounding intramolecular forces:

  1. “I Do” – The instructor creates an introductory lesson introducing intramolecular forces, and discusses the types of bonds that atoms can form (ionic, covalent, etc.). The instructor then shows examples of these types of bonds utilizing different atom types via medium of choice.
  2. “We Do” – This portion of the scaffolding could take place between students, working in pairs or small groups identifying the different types of bonds, and providing examples of each. This scaffolding could also include meeting with the instructor, via Teams or Zoom, or through a discussion that provides more of a ‘guided’ approach to the concepts.
  3. “You Do” – Students work on their own to display the learning that they have gathered on the topic. This could be done with a written assignment, discussion board post, low-stake quiz, or any way that the instructor chooses to assess students’ acquisition of knowledge.

These are just a couple of examples how you can integrate scaffolding into your course content for online learning. The critical aspect of scaffolding is purposeful chunking and segmenting of complex concepts and activities for comprehensive knowledge acquisition. It is important to keep in mind that any scaffolding should continue to be aligned to course expectations and learning outcomes as students will be more successful when it is done with consistency in a holistic sense.

If you would like to learn more about how to use scaffolding for online learning in your own course or have examples of how you are already using it, we’d love to hear from you! Feel free to contact the CATL office by email (CATL@uwgb.edu) to let us know where you’ve found success with these strategies, or to schedule a consultation with us.

Supporting First-Generation College Students (Mar. 24 & Apr. 28, 2023)

CATL is excited to partner with Lisa Lamson, Assistant Teaching Professor in Humanities and 2022-23 EDI Consultant, to offer two workshops this spring on supporting the success of first-generation college students.

Transparency in Syllabus Design for First-Gen Student Success (Mar. 24, 1 – 2 p.m.)

The first of the two workshops, Transparency in Syllabus Design for First Gen Student Success, will be held in person on Friday, Mar. 24 from 1 – 2 p.m. in the Alumni Room (University Union 103). This workshop addresses the whys and hows of syllabi – how can faculty best utilize the first-day foundational document throughout the semester to best support first-generation students as they navigate college? Despite best efforts, there seems to be a disconnect between how faculty see class syllabi and how students engage with the syllabi. This workshop intends to act as a bridge to help faculty articulate how their syllabi and learning outcomes shape the learning experiences throughout the semester and how it connects to their “genre knowledge” to help students see the value in a syllabus. In doing so, this workshop seeks to help faculty support first-generation students’ sense of belonging in the classroom and in the university by making clear the activities in the classroom’s connection to the university’s learning outcomes and beyond.

Unpacking the Hidden Curriculum for First-Generation Student Success (Apr. 28, 1 – 2 p.m.)

The the second workshop, Unpacking the Hidden Curriculum for First-Generation Student Success, will be held in person on Friday, Apr. 28 from 1 – 2 p.m. in MAC 107. “How do you know what you know?” – “Hidden Curriculum,” or the unspoken expectations of college in and outside of the classroom, often acts as a barrier to first-generation student success. While much of the academic scholarship on the “hidden curriculum” focuses on student experiences, this workshop intends to bring the conversation explicitly into the classroom – how can we uncover the information we, as faculty, just know and translate that for our students? How can we teach something we have learned through doing? This workshop proposes an opportunity for faculty to articulate the hidden “just knows” for their classroom to improve student achievement and, ultimately, success. Working through an assignment of their choosing, faculty will identify hidden expectations in their assessments and rubrics, and develop ways to make clear how the expectations of the assignment align with the course outcomes and beyond.