USG Teaching & Learning Conference 2016

Wednesday Afternoon OER Pecha Kucha Session
Presentation 2

Greta Giles, Jim Konzelman

In response to the growing need for affordable course materials in introductory college chemistry courses an open access chemistry text was piloted in 2 sections of Introductory Chemistry (Chem 1211 and 1212) at the University of North Georgia. The open access text selected was the Chemistry text published by the Openstax project at Rice University. A course website was developed to accompany the text which included text excerpts, short narrated powerpoint lectures, and practice problems. Student performance was evaluated at the end of the semester using standardized exams. Attitudinal surveys were also collected from students as a form of evaluation.

Wednesday Afternoon OER Pecha Kucha Session
Presentation 1

Ellen Cotter, Gary Fisk, Judy Orton Grissett

This presentation describes the implementation of an Open Educational Resource (OER) in PSYC 2103 (Human Growth and Development). A chapter from an existing open textbook will be supplemented with writing and discussion assignments, outside reading, and multimedia activities. As this OER will be used for the first time during the Spring 2016 semester and the class will still be in progress at the time of the conference, this presentation focuses primarily on preparing and compiling resources as opposed to evaluating the OER's effectiveness. Topics include selecting an OER, using Python programming to develop a test bank, finding resources to supplement OER content, and assessing student perceptions of the OER. The intended audience is not only PSYC 2103 instructors but also faculty who want to use an OER but are apprehensive at not having a full textbook available for this purpose.

Wednesday Afternoon OER Pecha Kucha Session
Presentation 3

Jocelyn Steward, Ethel Callen, Kendolyn Smith

Transforming a class by eliminating textbooks and using open educational resources can be a daunting task. While there are many resources available, navigating through the information may prove difficult and may deter those who wish to use open educational resources in place of textbooks. The presentation will demonstrate a way to transform five undergraduate and graduate courses in a health care management program from using standard textbooks to open educational resources. This presentation will provide a demonstration on how the team completed the transformation including developing modules, appropriate learning objectives, finding course material, and developing interactive material to promote student engagement. Participants will leave the presentation with tools and strategies to use when transforming their own classes. The team received a grant from ALG to complete the transformation.

Wednesday Afternoon OER Pecha Kucha Session
Presentation 4

Jonathan G. Cannon, Renat Khatmullin

This presentation addresses practical experience with the implementation of open educational resources in a high demand, service course. No open textbook yet exists for a one semester survey of Organic and Biochemistry. Chemwiki and Khan Academy provide quality, open educational resources organized around short, narrowly defined topics, which we used to replace an expensive textbook. A majority of the students appreciated the cost savings and used the materials provided regularly, however, we and the students identified small difficulties. in this talk we outline plans to address those difficulties.

Wednesday Afternoon OER Pecha Kucha Session
Presentation 5

Rhonda Armstrong, Melissa Johnson

There have been many studies analyzing students' use of electronic texts, with mixed results. Some experts believe that students prefer electronic texts and perform better with such; others state that there is not enough deep comprehension of the materials available online to benefit students and that print format is best. However, most of the studies on the use of electronic texts are related to courses other than those that are literature-based. The recent trend to move into the electronic domain has not yet been fully adopted in the literature classroom. The presenters are conducting a study to see how students engage with digital text in an American Literature survey course. In this presentation, they will discuss the particular challenges and opportunities associated with using freely accessible electronic texts in literary studies, along with preliminary impressions from their study of student attitudes toward and engagement with those texts.