Faculty Interview Guy Trainin-UNL

Brad Severa Author

10/05/2022 Added

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OER Faculty Seed Grant interview with Guy Trainin.

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[00:00:05.450]All right, so in our case, we're really looking at
[00:00:08.507]the whole program, trying to move into OER,
[00:00:11.647]and that's a process, but really what's driving the decision
[00:00:16.970]to move onto OER is at heart of the social justice.
[00:00:20.230]And it's a weird way to think about technology,
[00:00:22.560]but I often think about technology
[00:00:24.330]from a social justice perspective.
[00:00:26.805]OER allows more access to our materials
[00:00:29.684]with no additional cost to anybody who's there.
[00:00:33.730]But there's a second layer that we think about,
[00:00:37.240]and that is because we are in teacher education,
[00:00:40.310]everything we do helps our students, primarily,
[00:00:44.340]but it also models for them what we want them to do
[00:00:47.230]in the classroom, so we think about OER as an opportunity
[00:00:50.140]to model how K-12 classrooms that they're going to be
[00:00:54.162]teachers in, can work in the same way, so they can rely
[00:00:56.928]on OER to deliver curriculum,
[00:01:00.610]making the cost for their districts,
[00:01:03.190]and accessibility for their students considerably better.
[00:01:06.860]So it works on both of those levels,
[00:01:09.320]and so the big umbrella is social justice,
[00:01:12.728]and in there we're thinking about how do we model
[00:01:16.604]excellent teaching practices, and we're considering
[00:01:19.960]the price and the impact on our students,
[00:01:21.707]and the access to multiple media, because this is
[00:01:26.410]the opportunity that we have to expose our students
[00:01:30.130]not just to text, but to text with interactive items,
[00:01:33.880]with video, with audio, and I know that there are
[00:01:36.650]paid versions of that, but again,
[00:01:38.967]the ability to have control over that is really important.
[00:01:43.520]The last piece, and I think that is really important,
[00:01:45.282]is that it gives instructors more control over material,
[00:01:48.840]because when you decide to adapt a textbook,
[00:01:51.320]unless you wrote it yourself, it's going to not work
[00:01:54.070]100% for what you're doing, and so you start having
[00:01:57.000]to make compromises.
[00:01:58.670]If you make too many compromises and you tell your students,
[00:02:01.140]we're gonna ask you to buy this book, it's $120, or 400,
[00:02:05.140]and we're gonna use only chapters four, eight, and 12,
[00:02:09.580]students feel that they have spent their money,
[00:02:12.600]and they're not getting their money back.
[00:02:15.290]And that may or may not be true, but it means that I'm,
[00:02:20.030]as an instructor, kind of pushed to adapt more of that book,
[00:02:23.380]even if I don't love it, whereas if I'm deciding on
[00:02:27.410]exactly what to include, and I have the freedom to
[00:02:29.476]pick pieces, or to adapt even a whole book, but it's free,
[00:02:34.000]and it's electronic, it does give me the freedom to use
[00:02:37.590]only what I really want to use,
[00:02:39.200]and avoid the things I don't want to use.
[00:02:46.000]Well, when we think about converting our courses to OER,
[00:02:50.830]because we're doing it as a program,
[00:02:52.580]we have additional steps.
[00:02:54.090]So the first thing we do is we approach our instructors
[00:02:57.330]and say, are you interested, this is the direction
[00:02:59.960]we're moving, we're thinking about social justice.
[00:03:02.220]So we talk about the why first, and the opportunity second.
[00:03:06.760]Then we try to identify what they're using now.
[00:03:10.140]A lot of our instructors, because we have an LMS,
[00:03:13.070]really use a variety of resources that are beyond
[00:03:15.970]just using a textbook, so the transition is
[00:03:17.900]a little bit easier, I think.
[00:03:19.420]And the first thing we try to identify is, is there
[00:03:23.810]a textbook that is OER that is available out there.
[00:03:29.910]We have found very, very few of those out there that have
[00:03:33.910]enough quality that are worth it.
[00:03:35.680]If we have that, that that's what we use,
[00:03:37.990]and we use the creative commons license to play with
[00:03:44.900]the structure, add, subtract, and not adapt it just as-is,
[00:03:49.340]but to try to stay as close as possible.
[00:03:51.320]That is the easiest, least amount of friction.
[00:03:54.508]The advantage is, it's easy.
[00:03:57.110]The disadvantage is, it doesn't have as much impact on
[00:03:59.700]pedagogy as the second option, and the second option
[00:04:02.900]has happened more often.
[00:04:04.677]And that is that we go back and look at,
[00:04:08.690]what is the content you want to deliver,
[00:04:10.480]and then find resources that are available
[00:04:13.590]through the library, so journal articles that are aimed at
[00:04:16.370]practitioners, sometimes they are aimed at researchers,
[00:04:20.599]videos that are available out there, other resources,
[00:04:25.170]guides, teaching guides, PDFs that are available and
[00:04:30.809]free to use, and we stitch them together into classes.
[00:04:34.980]So the idea there is that we are creating
[00:04:38.070]a collection of resources where the instructor's job
[00:04:43.095]stops being explaining the book, and the intent behind it,
[00:04:48.210]or whatever the textbook is, and becomes more the person
[00:04:52.670]who helps our students connect the dots between
[00:04:56.160]the different resources, and this is where
[00:04:58.280]pedagogy really changes for us.
[00:05:00.316]Your pedagogy, as the instructor, becomes
[00:05:03.219]I'm the person that helps you understand how this video
[00:05:06.357]and this text and this piece that we pulled
[00:05:08.806]with the lesson plan fit together into a cohesive whole.
[00:05:14.320]And that is a really useful exercise
[00:05:18.270]because it does have a real impact on pedagogy.
[00:05:20.940]Now, we'd rather there was less friction and we'd find
[00:05:23.630]a lot more things that are available freely, just because
[00:05:28.220]we're dealing with teacher education.
[00:05:29.790]Teacher education is one of those areas that is taught
[00:05:33.600]in almost every American university.
[00:05:35.300]There's a very robust textbook industry, and therefore,
[00:05:38.510]there are a lot less free resources that exist as textbooks,
[00:05:42.300]so we go to that second level, but the advantage is,
[00:05:45.070]because it's a rich area, there are a lot of free resources
[00:05:48.650]available out there, or resources that are available freely
[00:05:52.840]to our students because they have free access to the library
[00:05:56.140]and all of its resources, so we can make all of those
[00:05:59.510]connections fairly easily.
[00:06:05.008]All right, so student feedback had been
[00:06:08.640]overwhelmingly positive for a variety of reasons.
[00:06:12.800]So first of all, students are very happy
[00:06:14.320]they don't have to buy a book.
[00:06:15.410]That's always a positive.
[00:06:17.320]That will probably go away as they will have
[00:06:21.370]more and more classes without OER,
[00:06:23.900]they won't have something to compare it to.
[00:06:25.890]So that's something that is hopefully short-lived,
[00:06:30.030]because we will go to OER on scale.
[00:06:32.713]The second thing that they loved is the variety of resources
[00:06:36.420]and especially the media, and I know that
[00:06:39.716]my students especially, even when there were media packets
[00:06:43.120]that they had to pay extra for, or came as part of the book,
[00:06:45.717]they would often not use them, because if you tear
[00:06:49.340]that piece at the end of the book that has the code,
[00:06:51.486]the book will not be bought back.
[00:06:53.780]They like selling their textbooks back, so even though
[00:06:56.170]they told me they have watched, they haven't, actually.
[00:06:59.020]This allows them to partake of everything that we have,
[00:07:03.270]and that's been powerful.
[00:07:04.720]I've had actually the reverse experience.
[00:07:06.640]I've had a course that was on OER,
[00:07:08.620]and then we decided to adapt a book,
[00:07:10.880]for a variety of reasons, and the students' reaction
[00:07:13.480]was fairly negative, so it was interesting what happens
[00:07:16.062]when you try to go back.
[00:07:17.450]And it's not the same students.
[00:07:18.500]They haven't experienced the OER in this class,
[00:07:20.800]but they were definitely,
[00:07:21.810]why did we have to buy this textbook?
[00:07:25.340]And as somebody who looks at a lot of course evaluation,
[00:07:28.600]that's one of the concerns that students have, repeatedly.
[00:07:32.020]Why did we get this?
[00:07:33.090]And so the counter argument to that is, and they noted,
[00:07:36.487]we love the fact that these resources were available,
[00:07:40.380]we could download them, we could take it with us into
[00:07:44.680]the future, because we do know that most of our students,
[00:07:47.600]most of the books they buy, run to sell them back,
[00:07:51.860]whether we like it or not, so that's part of the reality.
[00:07:59.697]What hasn't worked?
[00:08:00.920]As a program, the move is slow.
[00:08:06.110]When we get new instructors, we have to bring them on board
[00:08:09.880]and share the resources with them.
[00:08:12.000]And they do have academic freedom to decide they're going in
[00:08:14.760]a different direction, so that's one challenge.
[00:08:16.537]And there are some areas where there aren't
[00:08:19.780]really excellent resources.
[00:08:21.490]So in what I teach, traditionally, in teaching reading
[00:08:24.670]and writing at the elementary school,
[00:08:26.120]there's a huge amount of resource out there.
[00:08:28.460]There are areas where it's harder to get those, or harder
[00:08:31.600]to get those for free, and math is one of those examples.
[00:08:35.100]So we have, in very specific areas, great difficulty
[00:08:38.744]in creating OER, and that's going to simply be
[00:08:41.714]a longer process.
[00:08:43.510]So it's not that we're not gonna get there,
[00:08:45.090]but it will take a longer sifting, authoring,
[00:08:50.357]and making choices.
[00:08:57.790]So if you're thinking about it, you're at the right place.
[00:09:03.270]You need to think about it as a design process,
[00:09:06.960]so you've got to create an original.
[00:09:11.280]Spend some time thinking about it,
[00:09:12.760]consulting with others, and then just iterate.
[00:09:15.340]The first iteration will not be perfect,
[00:09:17.640]like anything else we design, so don't wait too long.
[00:09:22.660]Take a semester to plan or a summer to plan,
[00:09:25.070]collect the resources you want, go for it, get feedback,
[00:09:28.460]and get better.
[00:09:29.580]One of the things that I think is really important is
[00:09:32.480]getting almost weekly feedback from students.
[00:09:35.880]What did you like, what didn't you like?
[00:09:37.740]What worked for you, what didn't work for you?
[00:09:39.750]And I've done that in a course I taught.
[00:09:42.700]We're doing that as a program, trying to get the feedback
[00:09:45.280]in real time from students who are first doing it.
[00:09:48.830]And again, for us, it is about, we're teaching you about
[00:09:55.530]designing education, and part of designing education
[00:09:59.620]is knowing how students are receiving it.
[00:10:01.550]So you're doing it for the first time, it's the first
[00:10:03.520]situation, we're gonna ask you for your opinion every week.
[00:10:10.240]That is an excellent question.
[00:10:11.810]I don't know if I was surprised.
[00:10:14.020]Early on, I was surprised that some students felt,
[00:10:24.530]how would I say this, I think
[00:10:26.120]some students have felt that they miss the traditional book.
[00:10:31.080]Some students, when we give them an option of a digital book
[00:10:33.930]or a physical book, buy a physical book.
[00:10:36.090]They feel that it's harder to take notes.
[00:10:39.030]Those are real issues that I think are
[00:10:42.400]important to think about.
[00:10:45.230]They don't jump on the electronic side of things
[00:10:48.250]quite as happily as most people assume
[00:10:50.290]because they are a digital generation.
[00:10:52.540]But part of it is also that our students are and were
[00:10:59.040]excellent students, and they know how to work with textbooks
[00:11:02.760]and with paper products, and they were always successful.
[00:11:07.690]So they are a little bit suspicious when you change things
[00:11:10.610]and the more successful they were in the past, the more
[00:11:13.870]likely they are to resist it at least a little bit.
[00:11:17.528]But after a while, and now with kids who are going to school
[00:11:21.550]with, whether they're open educational resources or not,
[00:11:24.610]with digital resources, that resistance is less and less,
[00:11:29.990]and so with time, I believe that most of that would go away.
[00:11:37.200]I think that OER is an opportunity to redesign courses.
[00:11:42.220]OER is an opportunity to reconsider pedagogy and really
[00:11:47.290]take that opportunity to use the fact that we do have
[00:11:50.420]learning management systems to store all of
[00:11:52.460]this information, and we do have a world where
[00:11:56.110]a lot of information is available for free,
[00:11:59.240]or somewhat for free, and it's available to students
[00:12:03.910]through our other resources, especially library resources,
[00:12:06.680]and all our participation in OER, and so we don't have to go
[00:12:10.670]to the physical book, with the cost that comes with it,
[00:12:14.800]and that is really a powerful moment,
[00:12:18.913]pedagogically and from the social justice angle as well.
[00:12:27.430]The main thing that we see in course evaluations,
[00:12:31.090]the main difference, is when students are asked about
[00:12:37.330]what didn't work for you, what are the critiques that
[00:12:39.730]you have about this class, often in text-based classes,
[00:12:43.600]they complain about the textbook,
[00:12:45.240]about the amount of reading, sometimes, and about the cost.
[00:12:51.490]And again, and I talked about this before,
[00:12:53.610]but about the fact that they were asked to buy
[00:12:56.440]this very expensive book, and then they used it only
[00:12:58.870]occasionally, or only in the first four weeks.
[00:13:01.670]And once we start using open educational resources,
[00:13:05.760]especially if they're delivered through
[00:13:07.560]a learning management system,
[00:13:10.840]then most of these complaints go away.
[00:13:13.490]They still complain about too much reading,
[00:13:14.920]because too much reading is part of the deal,
[00:13:18.100]I think it's part of going to college in some ways,
[00:13:21.080]but they don't complain about the purchase.
[00:13:25.200]They don't complain about resources that they only use
[00:13:28.250]occasionally because they see their value, and they see
[00:13:32.657]the value at the point of contact, and when you're not
[00:13:35.900]paying that extra cost, it gets easier.
[00:13:43.090]So at the program level,
[00:13:44.870]the challenge is always to convince people to join.
[00:13:48.300]The instructional challenge in the classroom is that
[00:13:51.800]now you have to work with your students on sense-making,
[00:13:55.620]on how do you connect the dots,
[00:13:58.830]how do you help students understand that
[00:14:00.730]these four different pieces that you included in this week,
[00:14:03.640]I include a video about how you teach guided reading,
[00:14:05.910]I include an article about guided reading,
[00:14:08.240]and a short article from a practitioner journal
[00:14:13.640]about asking questions.
[00:14:15.660]So now my job in class is not to explain what you
[00:14:19.620]didn't understand, but actually to say here is how
[00:14:23.030]it all fits together, and is applicable to what you will do
[00:14:26.343]when you get to work with kids.
[00:14:29.170]So the job of the instructor really changes.
[00:14:36.930]So this is a hard question.
[00:14:38.710]I don't know that we see significant changes
[00:14:41.930]in class performance.
[00:14:43.500]The piece that is most helpful to our students
[00:14:47.660]is actually the use of media.
[00:14:49.010]Because we are a professional program, we're training them
[00:14:51.410]for something that happens in the real world with a job,
[00:14:54.870]it's not just an academic pursuit, the videos really help
[00:14:59.060]see another version of reality.
[00:15:00.990]So our students spend a lot of time in classrooms,
[00:15:03.750]watching a specific teacher working with kids.
[00:15:06.350]But they see only one version of reality, and when we
[00:15:09.410]move to OER and included a substantial amount of video,
[00:15:12.517]it helped expose them to other ways
[00:15:16.240]that the same practices can be enacted,
[00:15:18.220]or maybe practices they don't see in classrooms.
[00:15:21.100]So for example,
[00:15:24.620]there's a practice called literature circles.
[00:15:27.640]You don't see it in all grades,
[00:15:28.870]you don't see it in all classrooms.
[00:15:30.550]Some places use it, some places use it not effectively.
[00:15:33.910]We can use the videos to show really good examples,
[00:15:37.190]or examples of how it works in a fourth grade classroom.
[00:15:39.860]If you're right now with a teacher
[00:15:41.180]in a kindergarten classroom,
[00:15:42.240]even if they're using version of that,
[00:15:43.850]it's nothing like a fourth or a sixth grade classroom.
[00:15:47.040]So it allows to expand the variety of things that they
[00:15:51.170]can experience, and contextualizing in a way that
[00:15:53.720]a textbook, no matter how good it is, just can't.
[00:16:02.530]Yes, so the things that changes is first, you have to think
[00:16:08.540]about design, so you're redesigning your class in some ways,
[00:16:11.330]especially in the years you start transferring,
[00:16:13.850]and the fact that it's this jigsaw of resources
[00:16:17.250]in most of our cases allows us to change, to keep tinkering
[00:16:21.550]with content, without changing the structure of the class.
[00:16:26.840]So that really changed the way
[00:16:28.520]we keep redesigning our classes.
[00:16:30.500]It doesn't require us to go scratch everything
[00:16:32.850]and choose a new book and then adapt a new book.
[00:16:35.550]It doesn't matter that the publisher has changed
[00:16:38.310]page numbers, which they do on a regular basis
[00:16:41.589]to make sure we buy the newest edition.
[00:16:44.130]And so it frees us, from that perspective,
[00:16:46.450]to redesign on the go, without having to just
[00:16:50.170]get to the point where we're saying
[00:16:51.350]we're not using this book anymore.
[00:16:52.860]Then the adoption of a new textbook
[00:16:55.340]becomes a real challenge.
[00:16:56.910]So that's the first thing.
[00:16:57.743]The second thing is it really changed
[00:16:59.040]my role as an instructor.
[00:17:00.490]That's part of an evolution.
[00:17:02.160]I don't think it happens the day you adapt it, but it does
[00:17:04.586]help you think about your instruction in different ways.
[00:17:12.550]At the risk of fighting with Nike, just do it.
[00:17:16.060]Ha!
[00:17:17.445]Right?
[00:17:18.278](laughter)
[00:17:19.920]Anyway, I think that the most important thing is,
[00:17:23.440]if you're thinking about it, just try it.
[00:17:25.340]You can always go back to a textbook.
[00:17:27.140]There's nothing that says that this is a one way street.
[00:17:29.886]Find the resources, do the design work, and just try it.
[00:17:34.710]I find it empowering for most instructors,
[00:17:37.330]so I think it'll work.

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Faculty Interview Guy Trainin-UNL

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