Customizing Textbooks without Publishers: Empowering MATH Faculty to Create an Open Educational Resource (OER)
Presenters: Bruce Herbert, Samantha Shields, Angela Allen, Kathryn Bollinger, Vanessa Coffelt, and Jennifer Whitfield
Texas A&M University’s Department of Mathematics (MATH) received a university-level Enhancing the Design of Gateway Experiences (EDGE) grant to support departmental work seeking to increase student success rates in two large-enrollment, introductory-level, gateway courses. Grant recipients are working collaboratively with other University units to strategize, develop, and implement evidence-based teaching and curriculum redesign strategies in the identified courses to help improve success rates while increasing rigor and expectations to better attain the traditionally high academic standards. This project is aligned and directly supports Texas A&M’s Student Success Initiative (https://provost.tamu.edu/Initiatives/Student-Success).
As an initial step in their EDGE grant work, the faculty conducted a systematic textbook review to evaluate which textbook they would use as part of each course’s redesign process. It did not take the faculty long to determine none of the publisher-issued textbooks met the textbook selection criteria. This catalyzed the group’s decision to author their own OERs, one for each of the two large-enrollment, introductory-level, gateway math courses. The MATH’s OER project represented a partnership of a small group of dedicated and skilled academic professional track faculty, the Center for Teaching Excellence, Texas A&M Libraries, and Disability Resources, where each partner had specific roles.
Having just completed the EDGE grant’s year one, presenters will provide an overview of the process the MATH faculty group used to create their OERs, focusing on the discovery, curation, and implementation of OERs to making both MATH courses more engaging and inclusive by opening free access to high-quality learning materials. Presenters will also discuss their research plan for assessing the OERs’ impact on students’ attitudes and perceptions about learning math. The first OER, Mathematics for Business and Social Sciences is available through the Texas A&M repository (https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/188687).
Learning Outcomes: Participants will be able to…
- Describe how Texas A&M organizations partnered and supported a team of Mathematics faculty in authoring two OERs.
- Identify specific strategies and lessons learned regarding faculty support in authoring new OERs.
- Describe how the project directly supports Texas A&M’s Student Success Initiative.
Redefining the Textbook and Embedding Calculators for Online Exams
Presenter: Larry Green
With the OER model, we can now customize the textbook that we use by adding videos, interactive visualizations, and even games directly into the book. Using the LibreTexts platform, the presenter has taken the OpenStax Statistics textbook and embedded it with over 100 such activities to create materials that address all learning styles. Although, the presentation will demonstrate how this was done for the statistics class, this model can be used for any class.
We will also look at how such materials can be directly embedded into online exams using the iFrame. As many of us have had to move our courses to online, we struggle with how to create secure proctored exams where students still have the use of a calculator. One solution is to embed the calculator directly into the exam. The presenter will demonstrate how this is done using the Canvas LMS and LibreTexts calculator. This can be extended to other LMSs and other materials.
Learning Outcomes:
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Replace static textbooks with OER books that include multimedia, interactive visualizations, and learning games.
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Using iFrames to directly embed calculators and other OER information directly into exam questions so that students have access to the allowed exam materials while using an online proctoring system.
Promoting Robust Student Learning of Statistics with Open Education Resources
Presenters: Kelly Carey, Raphael Isokpehi
Learning is robust if the acquired knowledge meets at least one of the following three criteria: long-term retention; transfer and accelerated future learning. Promoting robust learning (rather than normal learning) of statistics knowledge content types is a desired transformative outcome for a second year statistics course offered at Bethune-Cookman University. Thus, we selected and implemented instances of statistics courses available through the Open Learning Initiative (OLI) web-based learning environment. Analytics of learning transactions from over nine semesters (offered to 303 traditional and 94 online students) is allowing us to investigate the metacognitive behaviors that promote robust student learning of statistics.
Learning Outcomes:
The attendee will learn how the data received from Open Learning Initiative by Carnegie Mellon helped us to determine best interventions to improve learning of statistics in Practical Statistics Course offered at Bethune-Cookman University.
