Open Education 2017

As a system, the University of Hawai'i faces unique barriers against and opportunities for the adoption of Open Educational Resources. As part of a larger advocacy strategy, the UH OER initiative is demystifying production workflows and visual/learning design principles, as well as beginning the process of skilling up staff to handle growing requests for expertise working with OER. This session will explain our process of empowering faculty and staff to take part in course and content design processes that put control back in the hands of instructional faculty, and provide a glimpse into the big picture plan for connecting our Open Education efforts with the rest of the globe.

This presentation will include three parts. First, we will report the instructional strategies, identified from former studies, used to reduce statistics anxiety caused by 1) worth of statistics, 2) interpretation anxiety, 3) test and class anxiety, 4) computation self-concept, 5) fear of asking for help, and 6) fear of statistics teachers. Second, we will share the experience how we assist three instructors in introductory statistics/quantitative research methodology courses to select and customize OERs through reuse, redistribution, revision, and remix. The customization of OER closely aligned with instructional strategies we proposed to reduce statistics anxiety. All OERs we adopted in this study were collected from 12 OER repository websites. The OERs used in this study included scholarly articles, datasets, simulations, video/screencast tutorials, comics or cartoons, and lesson plans Third, we will present students' perception toward the use of OER to reduce statistics anxiety. The participants in this study were students who enrolled in 5 introductory statistics/ quantitative research methodology courses at a university located in the southeastern United States. These participants came from different programs or departments. There were 113 participants in total. All participants in this study were pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree at the time this study was being conducted. The presentation will benefit both OER development and curriculum design.

Until summer 2016, there was no organized effort at PCC for the adoption and utilization of open education resources. Seeds of interest existed as individual faculty members developed some OER courses, but their work was not widely shared or recognized. However, those involved in the individual efforts understood how Pima's students could reap tremendous benefits from OER courses, and it was that thought that spurred our application for and eventual award of the Achieving the Dream grant. Now, as we attempt to create the courses for a fully online OER pathway to the AA Liberal Arts, we have one year of experience and insight into what it takes to grow OER courses in sustainable and collaborative ways. Join a team of PCC instructional designers as they share their experiences and best practices for developing a design team, defining the framework for the project, navigating successful partnerships with faculty, and addressing specific challenges finding and utilizing open resources.

Boise State University is a relatively new entrant to the area of OER in higher education. However, it has already developed a faculty professional development model. This model is characterized by a graduated progression, wherein faculty have the opportunity of experiencing professional development on OER through various short and long term programs like hour long workshops, single day institutes, semester long faculty learning communities, faculty mentorships, and grant projects. It is facilitated by Instructional designers and technologists from the IDEA (Instructional Design and Educational Assessment) shop in collaboration with LTS (Learning Technology Solutions). Challenges faced and lessons learned will be discussed, which might be useful for faculty professional developers looking to implement a similar program in their organizations.

This presentation will provide a brief overview of the OER professional development model at Boise State University. We will present background/timeline information on why and how OER professional development started at Boise State. We will talk about each of the components of the model, elaborating on the process of call for applications, participant selection, learning content and method. We will look at outside factors, Student Government involvement, and dealings with the school's administration. We will also talk about challenges faced and lessons learned which might be useful for faculty professional developers looking to implement a similar program in their organizations. The participants will engage in active discussions (think-pair-share) and share how OER is being implemented in their institutions as well as discuss ideas on how the current Boise State model can be improved.