Teaching

With my primary responsibility of teaching, I aimed to focus on Prince George's Community College's Strategic Goal 1:

"Enhancing equitable access and value for enrolling at PGCC"

This is of the utmost importance, as the general public's confidence in higher education is at an all-time low, with the most common issue being affordability. The strategic goal also overlaps with my personal belief that educational information should be free and accessible. The combination of these endeavors led to the journey of ridding my classes of the traditional legacy costs that significantly strained student finances. Every academic year, my courses save students money they would have been spending on textbooks and homework access.

OERs and Student satisfaction

The unfortunate reality

Over the past 20 years, data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis through Economic Research shows that relative prices of recreational books (both fiction and non-fiction) have remained stable, and have even slightly decreased as of late. At the same time, textbook prices have continuously increased, which can only be perceived as opportunistic price-gouging during a time when college degrees became more of a requirement for the 21st century job market. With the availability of information on the internet and the advancements with artificial intelligence (AI), this rapidly became something the general public took issue with, as the trust in our educational institutions is at an all time low. I aimed to change what I have the power to control as it pertains to my courses.

Open Educational Resources (OERs)

Open Educational Resources (OERs) offer a plethora of benefits for college students, significantly reducing the financial burden and promoting a more equitable educational experience. However, student feedback and satisfaction with OERs are crucial considerations; we cannot assume seamless integration. They include a wide range of materials shared to the public internet domains, but mainly refer to free textbooks and study materials such as quizzes, flash cards, and videos. Since becoming a full-time faculty member at a community college, my goal has been to find suitable replacements for biology textbooks that would allow the cost of my courses for students (outside of tuition) to be zero.

Savings Slide.pptx

Current courses

As it stands today, all of my concurrent courses operate as zero-cost courses (outside of tuition) after converting them away from their legacy costs. This has been a successful endeavor, where I have saved my students an average of $153.37 per class since the fall of 2020.

OER Textbook Satisfaction Study (n=203)

Student feedback and satisfaction with OER textbooks are crucial considerations; we cannot assume seamless integration. I conducted surveys across multiple student sections in different subject areas to gather feedback on their OER courses. Students were given the opportunity to speak freely and anonymously. The data reveal that students significantly favor OER courses and express high satisfaction with their course-specific OERs, citing their effectiveness in aiding course success. A noteworthy but insignificant number of students reported shortcomings in OERs, such as navigation and customization. The continual improvement of OER courses will enable instructors to foster an enriching and equitable learning environment that rivals, or even exceeds, their cost-heavy counterparts. Access the adjacent document to see a full breakdown of the results.

OER Study Results.pptx

Khan Academy Study Results.pptx

OER Homework Satisfaction Study (n=150)

Paid homework access is another way textbook publishers have increased the financial burden on students. They use an online homework subscription service sold for an additional cost on top of the textbook. I have sought to replace paid homework subscription access with an alternative that is immensely popular with students. Khan Academy is a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit that offers instructors the ability to host classes and assign web articles, videos, and practice problems to students. Methodology for this study was conducted similarly to the textbook study with anonymous surveys, and the results were just as conclusive. Students overwhelmingly favored Khan Academy integration in their courses and expressed high satisfaction with their website accessibility as well. Access the adjacent document to see a full breakdown of the results.

Raw Data from Survey Studies Above:

*This data include both the given survey questions, as well as a detailed breakdown of student responses per question.

All OER classroom resources

My classroom is intended to evolve and adapt to the changing landscape of 21st century learning, as well as enhance educational equity through lowering costs. Below are a list of resources that I frequently use and create content with to maximize the experience of students in my classroom.

OpenSTAX

OpenStax is a nonprofit educational initiative that offers free, peer-reviewed, openly licensed textbooks and resources for students and educators. It aims to increase access to quality education by providing digital and print materials across a wide range of subjects, from science to humanities. I use many OpenStax materials in my classrooms to support my OER initiative. The website is integrated into Canvas as an extension or link, and students are also able to download PDFs for offline viewing. An example of my BIO-1140 textbook can be found here:

BIO-1140 OpenStax Textbook

Khan Academy

Khan Academy is a nonprofit educational platform that provides free online lessons, practice exercises, and resources for learners of all ages. It covers subjects like math, science, and humanities, aiming to offer accessible, personalized education globally. To replace the $50-$90 cost of homework access through Pearson or McGraw Hill, I host virtual classrooms on Khan Academy and assign self-paced modules (which include articles, videos, & practice problems) to students. I am able to monitor their progress, and give class points to their completion efforts. To view a sample course, simply click this link and make an account:

Test Course

I was also selected to be a Khan Academy Ambassador by the organization. This entails giving a presentation/seminar at a professional development conference to meet the expectations of the ambassadorship. This was done at the PGCC Seed Day in 2022, which is shown in the Professional Development section of this portfolio.

Khan Academy Ambassadorship Acceptance Letter

The above image shows what a Khan Academy "gradebook" looks like. It includes whether or not students have completed reading web articles or watching videos by showing a checkmark. I encourage students to complete them all, but also mention that completion of those is optional. Some do them all, some don't. From there, it shows their % score on any practice quizzes, for which I give them points that contribute to their overall grades.

Libre Texts

Similar to OpenStax, LibreTexts is a nonprofit platform offering free, open-access educational textbooks and resources across various subjects. It aims to reduce textbook costs while promoting customized, collaborative learning for students and educators. Unlike other OER textbook platforms, it offers the opportunity for complete customization by instructors to design their textbooks with multiple resources, both in the internal libraries, and external. I was able to attend the 2020 LibreFest during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is LibreTexts' tutorial event where we all create our own OER textbook for integration into our courses. Below is a link to my BIO-1110 Environmental Biology Textbook where you can see that it is customized to my course's syllabus and schedule, rather than having to force my course outcomes to a different order/set of topics with a universal textbook.

BIO-1110 Environmental Biology LibreTexts OER Textbook

Gamification and Virtual Labs

Gamification makes learning more engaging by using rewards, competition, and progress tracking to motivate students and encourage active participation. It also fosters knowledge retention and persistence by creating a fun, goal-oriented environment that promotes collaboration. I make an active attempt to make class as engaging as possible. This includes more discussion with students, more interactive assignments/videos, and the use of polling, questions, game-based learning and much more. This is an example of a Jeopardy template I use to review with students before their exams. I also make use of virtual labs to support remote learning in biology classes. Here is an example of a lab used to supplement labs on phylogenetic relationships:

Nova Evolution Lab

Final Jeopardy!.pptx

Open Broadcaster Software (OBS)

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is a free, open-source program for video recording and live streaming. It offers powerful tools for capturing screens, webcams, and audio, widely used by content creators, gamers, and professionals. I use this to record my lecture videos and events. There is a specfic brand called StreamLabs OBS which serves the same purpose but also allows for live streaming on various websites. Here is an example of an event I did with students during the COVID-19 pandemic where I presented a "Pre-Election" talk on Climate Change for Halloween. This particular event attracted 144 unique viewers.

My Youtube channel

Throughout my teaching career, I have often found it difficult for certain types of students (fully employed, with children, etc.) to attend my classes. As 21st century teaching emphasizes the use of technology, I have used it for the purpose of recording my lectures for my students. With the use of the video sharing platform YouTube, I can provide videos of recordings from all of my courses for students who would like to re-watch my lectures, or if they need to miss class. An example of this can be found here:

Community Ecology Lecture

All of these OER resources contribute to my overall classroom experience and enhance educational equity for students. However, it's important to note that education is always evolving, as newer resources and modes of learning are being added every year. I recently gave a talk on Artificial Intelligence and how it currently supplements reading materials, tutoring, and might entirely replace the concept of a textbook one day. This is an example of a new aspect of learning that we as educators will need to account for. I look forward to the challenge of adopting my courses to the most relevant modes of 21st century learning.

Recent Examples of Course Evaluations

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