Reflect
What questions do you have about your use of OER and other no-cost materials in your class? About your students’ experiences with OER and other no-cost materials? What would you like to learn?
Explore
Here are resources you can explore (though you are encouraged to start small):
- Sample questionnaire used at BMCC and overview of results
- Research by CUNY faculty
- OER Research Toolkit
- Review of OER research
Write
Post a comment below explaining how you plan to assess your and/or your students’ experiences with OER and other no-cost materials in your course. Your assessment could be as simple as reflecting on your own experience or asking your students to reflect on their experience, or it could be the first step on the way to a research study.
7 thoughts on “Assessing the Use of OER/ZTC Materials”
What questions do you have about your use of OER and other no-cost materials in your class? About your students’ experiences with OER and other no-cost materials? What would you like to learn? The workshop clearly informed me about the use of OER materials. Even though at this time I use a relatively small portion of these materials in my SPE 100 course, I now feel more knowledgeable about where to find OER materials and how to incorporate them into my curriculum.
Post a comment below explaining how you plan to assess your and/or your students’ experiences with OER and other no-cost materials in your course. Your assessment could be as simple as reflecting on your own experience or asking your students to reflect on their experience, or it could be the first step on the way to a research study. As I’ve stated in previous comments during the workshop, the OER materials I use in my class are self-created. This is because the focus of the course is on building a particular fundamental skill: correctly structuring and delivering a series of speeches, initially short ones, building to longer, more involved speeches. The ‘knowledge component’ of the class is delivered through a series of PowerPoints, quizzes, and exams, that I have written.
What questions do you have about your use of OER and other no-cost materials in your class? About your students’ experiences with OER and other no-cost materials? What would you like to learn? I am optimistic about the OER Speech Textbook I found during the Workshop and will also integrate information from BMCC Speech Department OER textbook. However, I am more concerned about the time it will take to migrate the course from Blackboard to the OpenLab than I am about the OER/ZTC materials I have selected for the class.
Post a comment below explaining how you plan to assess your and/or your students’ experiences with OER and other no-cost materials in your course. Your assessment could be as simple as reflecting on your own experience or asking your students to reflect on their experience, or it could be the first step on the way to a research study. I will start by reflecting on my own experience and asking students to reflect on their own experiences. A few years ago, I started a research paper on whether OER textbooks decrease attrition and increase pass rate in the Speech class. I can assess the students’ progress over a few semesters to test my hypothesis—something to consider for future research.
My only remaining questions about the use of OER materials is time-related. Do I need to state all of my OER resources in my syllabus … or may I make up my mind and make changes to the syllabus as the semester progresses?
After reviewing the OER resource materials, I would feel comfortable utilizing the Student Survey About Course Materials. I also found the OER Research Guidebook chapter on “Measuring the Impact of OER Adoption on Student Outcomes” to be very helpful.
I like the idea of sharing your student survey on the course materials. One question I have is about sharing student work. Students often ask me for examples when I give assignments, and while I write and share my own examples, I wonder about the implications and possibilities of asking students to share their particularly strong work as examples for my future classes. What is the process for involving students in cc licensing?
I will be measuring how long it takes to gather and develop the materials (as an adjunct, time is money!) as a significant component of my OER experience, but I am also confident that once I do any lass for the first time, simply switching in and out new materials/content/assignments will actually be easier because I think using OER makes the knowledge more fluid. I will be polling the students and giving assignments (extra credit probably) to ask them their thoughts on everything and also ask them how they would like to demonstrate their knowledge. I hope this will make them more engaged in their own learning.
Looking over the student survey results from the oer student survey, there were responses that surprised me, and some that lined up with feedback learners have given in class (regarding their interaction with and access to classroom materials). I am left wondering what learners without time to complete a survey might have to say – and how I can reach out to them to find out more about their experience.
I’m looking forward to the use of OER, especially finding ways to make learning more accessible. The concepts and practices I’m taking from this workshop and the Open Pedagogy workshop overlap, and more and more I’m thinking of learners as knowledge creators. I know some of the oer textbooks I’m planning to use, and I distinctly remember a student from two semesters ago, who asked for more audio content – or more ways to interact with written texts, beyond reading. I think for learners that struggle with digital reading, or even printed reading, I’m going to record each chapter’s audio and release it as a podcast. I’m in the lucky and unique position to have the skills necessary to create a podcast, and while I only plan to record chapters of the textbooks at the moment, it’s something with the potential to grow – and a space learners could disseminate their own creativity and knowledge.
All this to say, I hope to provide the resources as many ways as possible, and plan to ask for frequent feedback – perhaps a survey like the one used by CETLS, for my course, at the beginning, middle, and end of the course; this would give students chances to reflect throughout the course, and I can even chart changes. I may have to do additional research on the survey process, as I saw there was a great deal of information provided to students in the CETLs study.
In terms of questions regarding OER, I believe that the workshop covered the proper usage and considerations for appropriate use. I found what I believe to be a great resource for OER content which includes a textbook and other materials that I will incorporate into my course. I have a feeling that my students will appreciate that the content is free and I will appreciate that the content remains comprehensive.
In terms of assessing the OER experience, I will likely compare the pros and (maybe) cons of my course with my previous ones. I will take into account preparation, implementation, and student feedback without prompting them. My goal is to run the course the same way, note any differences, and make changes for future semesters that’ll benefit the students and me. I feel like this is the best method for me since I did not survey my “non-OER” students in a similar way for comparison ( like a control group!). I will consider doing a survey to use my first OER course as a baseline.