If you're thinking about it, you're at the right place.
I mean, it's really the story of the dog that didn't bark.
So, it's pretty easy.
Do it.
I won't go back.
It wound up being a surprise for us.
(slow piano music)
How few students were generally
even opening their books before.
Textbooks are kind of built to be all things
to all people, and to maximize sells across a wide market.
They were asked to buy this very expensive book,
and then they used it only occasionally,
or only in the first four weeks.
Thousands of students use the textbook in the first week,
and that dropped off to hundreds of students.
My students in particular,
had to forgo purchasing books,
or had to delay purchasing books,
or they chose a different course
because the cost of the book associated with it.
The textbook was not very accessible
for a wide range of our students.
Students still complained that it
wasn't so interesting, it was outdated.
That it didn't make sense for students
to be a purchasing a very expensive textbook.
(upbeat music)
Education's getting more expensive,
and if we can help in our own little way we wanted to.
OER allows more access to our materials,
with no additional cost, to anybody who's there.
Because of the diminished role of the textbook,
it was relatively straightforward to make this change.
And it was overwhelmingly positive,
what students said is, "thank you
"for not having a boring textbook."
I will say that the students seemed
a lot more active and engaged when I used my OER text.
And so, you get to teach the course
that you want to teach, as opposed to teaching
the course that the textbook gives you.
And I think that's a real benefit.
And also, if you're looking for a way
to reinvigorate your teaching,
and to really incorporate those principles of diversity,
equity and inclusion on campus,
I think this is a really great way to do so.
(upbeat music)
But it was a several step process,
of finding the right people do the job,
finding the right materials to fit our course,
and then the process of actually writing
and editing those materials.
I might have looked a little bit more before I leaped,
just to see what's out there before I committed
myself to saying, "I'm gonna go all in,
"and I'm gonna commit to adopting an OER."
Forming the team was really important,
and finding the right individuals to work on the team.
We needed somebody that was going to make
this sort of executive decision.
So, what I did is, I worked with a graduate student,
who has been working with me
in my Introduction to International Relations class.
She actually took the class as an undergraduate student,
and as a graduate student,
she taught it at least three times,
with different faculty members.
So, she had already been involved in identifying articles
that supported what we were doing in the class,
and so, she and I talked about ways in which and places
where she could identify additional materials
to supplement the textbook that we were deleting
and getting rid of.
And then also trying to find other materials,
not just articles, but videos, or even exercises.
And we also talked about ways that she could
create activities for students to do,
instead of just having them read book chapters or articles.
We go back and look at what is the content
you want to deliver and then find resources
that are available through the libraries,
so, journal articles that are aimed at practitioners,
sometimes they are aimed at researchers.
Once we had found materials, then we started looking
at software, to try to decide what is the software
that we're going to use to build out our content in.
You need to think about it as a design process.
So, you've got to create an original,
spend some time thinking about it, consulting with others,
and then just iterate.
The first iteration will not be perfect,
like anything else we design.
So, don't wait too long, take a semester to plan,
or a summer to plan, collect the resources you want,
go for it, get feedback, and get better.
(upbeat music)
We've received some feedback from students,
students appreciate that they're not having
to purchase a textbook.
I would say in terms of engagement and scores
on weekly quizzes, they're far higher than I saw
with the textbook version of our online quizzes.
And in the past when I looked at student's
engagement in the materials, it seemed like they engaged
right at the end of the semester, this semester anecdotally,
it seemed like students were engaging with the material
from the beginning through the end, you know,
not just right before a quiz, or right before a test,
it seemed like they were engaging
with the material throughout the semester.
The piece that is most helpful to our students
is actually the use of media,
because we are a professional program,
we're training them for something that happens
in the real world with a job,
it's not just an academic pursuit.
The videos really help see another version of reality.
So, our students spend a lot of time in classrooms,
watching a specific teacher working with kids,
but they see only one version of reality,
and when we move to where we are,
and included a substantial amount of video,
it helped expose them to other ways
that the same practices can be enacted,
or maybe practices they don't see in classrooms.
We can see from the analytics how it's being used,
and what's being emphasized.
We have control over how it works,
and can change it when we don't like it.
Your pedagogy as the instructor becomes,
I'm the person that helps you understand
how this video, and this text,
and this piece that we pulled with the lesson plan,
fit together into a cohesive whole.
And that is a really useful exercise,
because it does have a real impact on pedagogy.
We have several thousand students
who are using the materials,
and we are also tracking where they're using it from,
and we know that there's other countries,
in fact, that they're using our materials now.
I know one of the things that we're interested in doing,
is that there's several other HAG physics classes
at other universities, at other schools,
that we know through a lot of different avenues,
one of them being our professional society.
And I'm looking to try and share some
of the process and resources with them if we can.
(upbeat music)
The most important thing is,
if you're thinking about it, just try it.
You can always go back to a textbook,
there's nothing that says that this is a one way street.
Though, I would definitely recommend participating
in the OER and Kelly Grant cohorts,
especially for any new classes.
We've made ours available both online, but also,
in mobile formats, it's formatted for cellphones,
it's formatted for iPads.
Students can access this wherever they are.
I also was able to find articles
that are super interesting, some of them that
are incredibly provocative, and to include things
that I knew that students would be more likely to read.
I can benefit my students pedagogically,
I can benefit my students financially.
It is very encouraging to have something
which is essentially not tied to a commercial publisher,
and is controlled by the people who teach the course,
not somebody outside of it.
If it's in the student's best interest, we should do it.
At the risk of fighting with Nike, just do it.
(upbeat music)