Open Educational Resources

Please join the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) for a free and open webinar on Designing for Open Pedagogy. Open Pedagogy was first introduced by Lumen Learning co-founder David Wiley, as a way to capture how the use of OER can change educational practices. He relates that using OER in the same way as traditional textbooks is like driving an airplane down the road – it is missing out on what open can provide for student and teacher collaboration, engagement, and learning.

We will hear from two professors who have not only adopted OER but have redesigned their courses with the principles of open pedagogy. Although reduced cost is what originally attracted them to using OER, involving their students in creating and evaluating OER course materials has significantly increased student engagement and critical thinking and their courses are continually being updated and improved as a result.

Featured Speakers: Suzanne Wakim, Biology Faculty Butte College, OER Coordinator Will share her open course design strategy where students in subsequent semesters build on the work of those before them to create an open textbook and ancillary material. Students discuss and decide on how best to present material in the book, what applications are relevant for each topic, and what materials can help other students learn the course content.

Mike Elmore, Political Science Faculty, Tacoma Community College Will share how he has engaged students in collaborative writing of an Introduction to Political Science open textbook. His students report that writing assignments take on new meaning when they realize that other people are going to read their work. Not just repeating what they have read or heard in class, they compare their understanding with their peers and collaborate to present their ideas in the best way possible.

TEDx Talks, Published on Feb 10, 2019 

Open Educational Resources are free and openly licensed textbooks and other course materials that students can use to push back against rising textbook costs. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Rebus Community, published on Sep 29, 2017

Speakers Maha Bali (The American University in Cairo) Alan Harnum (OCAD), and Susan Doner (Camosun College) discuss Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in OER.

Rebus Community, Published on Jun 8, 2017

In this session of Office Hours, guest speakers Josie Gray, BCcampus; Krista Greear, University of Washington; Jess Mitchell, OCAD University; and Michelle Reed, the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries discussed best practices to ensure accessibility in open textbooks. The speakers and ensuing discussion covered methods to ensure accessibility during authoring and post-authoring processes and how to audit the accessibility of existing open textbooks. Office Hours is hosted by Open Textbook Network and Rebus Community.

Open Education Consortium, Published on Apr 11, 2018

There is no “typical” student; how can we design courses that meet varied student needs? Traditional textbooks and other instructional materials with all rights reserved can often be difficult to make accessible or flexible enough to engage a diverse group of students. Join us to hear how open educational practices (OEP) including OER adoption can support accessibility of instructional materials and enable student-centered course design methodologies such as universal design for learning (UDL).

Tara Bunag from the University of the Pacific discovered she had a student, who is blind, enrolled in her graduate statistics course less than two months before semester start. Unable to get the traditional statistics textbook converted to a screen-readable format in that timeframe, she turned to the OpenStax Introductory Statistics text which was digital, accessible, and free online. Integrating multiple OER with tactile resources and open data sets, she was able to achieve a more effective learning experience.

Suzanne Wakim of Butte Community College will share how she uses open educational practices to design courses based on the principles of UDL to increase student choice, encourage critical thinking, and improve learning outcomes. These practices include giving students various ways of acquiring information, interacting with the content, and demonstrating understanding. The result has been far more engaging for both students and teacher.