How We Teach This: Season Two - Connecting with OER

In the Season 2 Series of How We Teach This - Connecting with OER, the focus is on how Emporia State University faculty are embedding open educational resources into their instruction. In each episode, the guest shares their experience with embedding OER into their instruction, challenges they overcame, and advice for others.

Season 2, OER Series - Episode 3: September 8, 2021

Open Educational Resources

College textbooks and course materials costs have increased over 800% in the last three decades, far outpacing inflation, housing, and medical costs, to become the most inflated consumer product. High-cost texts create significant barriers to learning and student success. Open Educational Resources (OER) are "teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others” (Hewlett Foundation). OER and related practices are an approach to overcoming cost and reuse barriers to the benefit of students and instructors.

In this episode, Art Gutierrez and Dr. Terri Summey from Emporia State University's Libraries + Archives., discuss using an OER in their courses.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Information Literacy User’s Guide: An Open, Online Textbook by Bernnard, Bobish, Bullis, Hecker, Holden, Hosier, Jacobson, and Loney. 2014. Open SUNY. Link: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/190
Research Strategies: Finding Your Way Through the Information Fog by William Badke. 2008 (new edition available 2017). iUniverse.
Information Now: A Graphic Guide to Student Research by Matt Upson, C. Michael Hall, and Kevin Cannon. 2015. The University of Chicago Press.
Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Association of College and Research Libraries. 2016. Link: https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework
EBSCO Faculty Select. Available to all ESU faculty and staff at emporia.edu/library, select "Databases."
Everyday Leadership by Drew Dudley. 2010. TED. Link: https://www.ted.com/talks/drew_dudley_everyday_leadership?language=en

Season 2, OER Series - Episode 5: September 22, 2021

Finding Inspiration to Incorporate OER Into Courses

Dr. Jasmine Linabary from Emporia State University's Department of Communication and Theatre discusses her motivation for adding an Open Education Resource textbook into her course and how that has inspired her and her department to look at creating an OER for their public speaking course.

Mentioned in this episode:

EAT (Emporia at the Table) Initiative – www.emporia.edu/eat
Pressbooks OER Platform – www.pressbooks.org
ESU Copy Center

Season 2, OER Series - Episode 7: October 6, 2021

OER in Biological Sciences

“As a student, I struggled at times going to the bookstore at the start of the semester and plopping down hundreds and hundreds of dollars for books - at the end, I sell back at one-tenth the price. As a teacher, that concerns me,” said Dr. Stewart Gardner, from the Department of Biological Sciences at ESU. Stewart shares his experience with using both traditional textbooks and open educational resources and why he prefers one over the other.

Season 2, OER Series - Episode 9: October 20, 2021

OER in Creative Writing

Dr. Kevin Rabas and Dr. Amy Sage Webb-Baza, from Emporia State University's Department of English, Modern Languages, and Journalism, discuss ballroom dancing, their reasons for adding Open Educational Resources (OER) into their creative writing courses, and express gratitude for the many resources available to help them with the transition.

Season 2, OER Series - Episode 11: November 3, 2021

OER During the Pandemic

Adapting a course from face-to-face to online is not an easy task. In this episode, Dr. Jennifer Moss from Emporia State University's Department of Psychology discusses how she implemented OER into her course while transitioning her courses online due to the COVID pandemic.

Season 2, OER Series - Episode 13: November 17, 2021

OER in Math with Video Creation

"A lot of my implementation (of OER) comes from using the mathematical community to find some good, open source or free text options. For the classes I'm using it in, I'm making videos to go on top of it. I will look at the material, and I'll (short) create lectures (with captioning)," said Dr. Thomas Mahoney, associate professor in ESU's Mathematics and Economics Department.

Spring 2021 Workshop Series

This series features guest hosts Dr. Joelle Spotswood, Director of ESU's Writing Center, and is produced by co-host Bethanie O'Dell, Director of The Teachers College Resource & Outreach Center.

If you're interested in sharing your OER story, please contact Dr. Joelle Spotswood or Bethanie O'Dell.