Kelly Seed Grant Interviews-UNL

Brad Severa Author

10/06/2022 Added

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Kelly Seed Grant Interviews

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[00:00:02.360]If you're thinking about it, you're at the right place.
[00:00:06.010]I mean, it's really the story of the dog that didn't bark.
[00:00:08.350]So, it's pretty easy.
[00:00:09.300]Do it.
[00:00:10.133]I won't go back.
[00:00:10.966]It wound up being a surprise for us.
[00:00:13.416](slow piano music)
[00:00:19.280]How few students were generally
[00:00:20.800]even opening their books before.
[00:00:22.810]Textbooks are kind of built to be all things
[00:00:24.810]to all people, and to maximize sells across a wide market.
[00:00:29.120]They were asked to buy this very expensive book,
[00:00:31.360]and then they used it only occasionally,
[00:00:33.110]or only in the first four weeks.
[00:00:34.760]Thousands of students use the textbook in the first week,
[00:00:37.300]and that dropped off to hundreds of students.
[00:00:39.560]My students in particular,
[00:00:40.919]had to forgo purchasing books,
[00:00:43.690]or had to delay purchasing books,
[00:00:46.010]or they chose a different course
[00:00:47.410]because the cost of the book associated with it.
[00:00:49.580]The textbook was not very accessible
[00:00:51.210]for a wide range of our students.
[00:00:52.600]Students still complained that it
[00:00:53.817]wasn't so interesting, it was outdated.
[00:00:56.160]That it didn't make sense for students
[00:00:57.400]to be a purchasing a very expensive textbook.
[00:00:59.978](upbeat music)
[00:01:05.560]Education's getting more expensive,
[00:01:07.300]and if we can help in our own little way we wanted to.
[00:01:10.920]OER allows more access to our materials,
[00:01:14.090]with no additional cost, to anybody who's there.
[00:01:18.340]Because of the diminished role of the textbook,
[00:01:20.710]it was relatively straightforward to make this change.
[00:01:23.380]And it was overwhelmingly positive,
[00:01:26.060]what students said is, "thank you
[00:01:27.387]"for not having a boring textbook."
[00:01:29.720]I will say that the students seemed
[00:01:30.990]a lot more active and engaged when I used my OER text.
[00:01:34.911]And so, you get to teach the course
[00:01:36.185]that you want to teach, as opposed to teaching
[00:01:38.423]the course that the textbook gives you.
[00:01:40.500]And I think that's a real benefit.
[00:01:42.170]And also, if you're looking for a way
[00:01:44.160]to reinvigorate your teaching,
[00:01:45.970]and to really incorporate those principles of diversity,
[00:01:49.130]equity and inclusion on campus,
[00:01:51.520]I think this is a really great way to do so.
[00:01:53.702](upbeat music)
[00:02:03.200]But it was a several step process,
[00:02:05.110]of finding the right people do the job,
[00:02:06.980]finding the right materials to fit our course,
[00:02:09.290]and then the process of actually writing
[00:02:11.810]and editing those materials.
[00:02:14.290]I might have looked a little bit more before I leaped,
[00:02:16.740]just to see what's out there before I committed
[00:02:18.670]myself to saying, "I'm gonna go all in,
[00:02:20.347]"and I'm gonna commit to adopting an OER."
[00:02:23.080]Forming the team was really important,
[00:02:25.300]and finding the right individuals to work on the team.
[00:02:29.610]We needed somebody that was going to make
[00:02:32.190]this sort of executive decision.
[00:02:33.980]So, what I did is, I worked with a graduate student,
[00:02:36.330]who has been working with me
[00:02:37.500]in my Introduction to International Relations class.
[00:02:39.850]She actually took the class as an undergraduate student,
[00:02:42.170]and as a graduate student,
[00:02:43.450]she taught it at least three times,
[00:02:45.620]with different faculty members.
[00:02:47.380]So, she had already been involved in identifying articles
[00:02:50.770]that supported what we were doing in the class,
[00:02:52.950]and so, she and I talked about ways in which and places
[00:02:56.120]where she could identify additional materials
[00:02:58.400]to supplement the textbook that we were deleting
[00:03:00.880]and getting rid of.
[00:03:01.810]And then also trying to find other materials,
[00:03:04.570]not just articles, but videos, or even exercises.
[00:03:08.920]And we also talked about ways that she could
[00:03:10.760]create activities for students to do,
[00:03:13.380]instead of just having them read book chapters or articles.
[00:03:16.700]We go back and look at what is the content
[00:03:20.170]you want to deliver and then find resources
[00:03:23.370]that are available through the libraries,
[00:03:25.090]so, journal articles that are aimed at practitioners,
[00:03:28.120]sometimes they are aimed at researchers.
[00:03:30.800]Once we had found materials, then we started looking
[00:03:32.660]at software, to try to decide what is the software
[00:03:35.700]that we're going to use to build out our content in.
[00:03:39.770]You need to think about it as a design process.
[00:03:43.470]So, you've got to create an original,
[00:03:47.780]spend some time thinking about it, consulting with others,
[00:03:50.570]and then just iterate.
[00:03:51.830]The first iteration will not be perfect,
[00:03:54.150]like anything else we design.
[00:03:56.360]So, don't wait too long, take a semester to plan,
[00:04:00.410]or a summer to plan, collect the resources you want,
[00:04:03.270]go for it, get feedback, and get better.
[00:04:06.176](upbeat music)
[00:04:12.200]We've received some feedback from students,
[00:04:14.730]students appreciate that they're not having
[00:04:17.230]to purchase a textbook.
[00:04:18.540]I would say in terms of engagement and scores
[00:04:21.280]on weekly quizzes, they're far higher than I saw
[00:04:24.740]with the textbook version of our online quizzes.
[00:04:27.210]And in the past when I looked at student's
[00:04:31.750]engagement in the materials, it seemed like they engaged
[00:04:34.170]right at the end of the semester, this semester anecdotally,
[00:04:37.560]it seemed like students were engaging with the material
[00:04:40.550]from the beginning through the end, you know,
[00:04:42.330]not just right before a quiz, or right before a test,
[00:04:44.930]it seemed like they were engaging
[00:04:46.090]with the material throughout the semester.
[00:04:48.660]The piece that is most helpful to our students
[00:04:52.400]is actually the use of media,
[00:04:53.740]because we are a professional program,
[00:04:55.490]we're training them for something that happens
[00:04:57.890]in the real world with a job,
[00:04:59.610]it's not just an academic pursuit.
[00:05:01.830]The videos really help see another version of reality.
[00:05:05.710]So, our students spend a lot of time in classrooms,
[00:05:08.480]watching a specific teacher working with kids,
[00:05:11.070]but they see only one version of reality,
[00:05:13.700]and when we move to where we are,
[00:05:15.010]and included a substantial amount of video,
[00:05:17.640]it helped expose them to other ways
[00:05:20.970]that the same practices can be enacted,
[00:05:22.950]or maybe practices they don't see in classrooms.
[00:05:25.830]We can see from the analytics how it's being used,
[00:05:29.150]and what's being emphasized.
[00:05:30.390]We have control over how it works,
[00:05:32.680]and can change it when we don't like it.
[00:05:35.730]Your pedagogy as the instructor becomes,
[00:05:38.150]I'm the person that helps you understand
[00:05:39.570]how this video, and this text,
[00:05:42.080]and this piece that we pulled with the lesson plan,
[00:05:45.280]fit together into a cohesive whole.
[00:05:48.740]And that is a really useful exercise,
[00:05:52.690]because it does have a real impact on pedagogy.
[00:05:55.600]We have several thousand students
[00:05:57.340]who are using the materials,
[00:05:58.930]and we are also tracking where they're using it from,
[00:06:02.270]and we know that there's other countries,
[00:06:03.770]in fact, that they're using our materials now.
[00:06:05.710]I know one of the things that we're interested in doing,
[00:06:07.720]is that there's several other HAG physics classes
[00:06:11.410]at other universities, at other schools,
[00:06:13.540]that we know through a lot of different avenues,
[00:06:16.870]one of them being our professional society.
[00:06:18.800]And I'm looking to try and share some
[00:06:21.410]of the process and resources with them if we can.
[00:06:24.699](upbeat music)
[00:06:30.380]The most important thing is,
[00:06:31.760]if you're thinking about it, just try it.
[00:06:33.650]You can always go back to a textbook,
[00:06:35.460]there's nothing that says that this is a one way street.
[00:06:37.890]Though, I would definitely recommend participating
[00:06:40.400]in the OER and Kelly Grant cohorts,
[00:06:42.720]especially for any new classes.
[00:06:45.590]We've made ours available both online, but also,
[00:06:50.330]in mobile formats, it's formatted for cellphones,
[00:06:52.780]it's formatted for iPads.
[00:06:54.910]Students can access this wherever they are.
[00:06:57.750]I also was able to find articles
[00:07:00.810]that are super interesting, some of them that
[00:07:02.710]are incredibly provocative, and to include things
[00:07:05.550]that I knew that students would be more likely to read.
[00:07:08.360]I can benefit my students pedagogically,
[00:07:10.550]I can benefit my students financially.
[00:07:13.840]It is very encouraging to have something
[00:07:15.470]which is essentially not tied to a commercial publisher,
[00:07:18.880]and is controlled by the people who teach the course,
[00:07:21.820]not somebody outside of it.
[00:07:23.800]If it's in the student's best interest, we should do it.
[00:07:27.020]At the risk of fighting with Nike, just do it.
[00:07:30.521](upbeat music)

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Kelly Seed Grant Interviews-UNL

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