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Start Date
8-3-2018 3:30 PM
Description
Use of open educational resources (OER) has picked up steam in higher education in recent years. At the University of Kentucky (UK), thanks to UK Libraries’ Alternative Textbook Grant Program, an increasing number of instructors have replaced traditional textbooks with OER or library-licensed resources to ensure their students’ access to essential learning materials. The instructors have gained insights and learned lessons through teaching courses with such alternative textbooks. To provide the instructors with an opportunity to share their thoughts and experiences, UK Libraries hosted a panel discussion during Open Education Week on March 8, 2018. The panelists were Dr. Brenna Byrd (Modern & Classical Languages, Literatures & Culture), Dr. Melody Danley (Biology), and Dr. Stephanie Reynolds (Information Science). Trey Conatser from the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT) facilitated the discussion, which covered these topics:
- Beyond the cost savings benefit, what else influenced your decision to adopt alternative or open texts?
- How did you identify the best ways to locate high-quality, alternative or open materials? Were there particular strategies that would benefit other faculty? How did you make sure that the new resources aligned with learning outcomes and disciplinary expectations?
- How has a different approach to educational resources changed your teaching, your course design, and/or your curriculum? What commonplaces have you interrogated?
- How did students respond to the new materials? What were the effects on engagement, learning, and student success?
- What difficulties have you encountered, and how have you responded to them? (These may be ongoing difficulties, too).
- What are your future aspirations for alternate and open resources? What other avenues would you like to explore?
Click the Download button on the right to download the video of the discussion in MP4 format. A brochure about this event is available as the additional file listed below.
Panel discussion brochure
How Did They Do That?: Use of Alternative Textbooks for Teaching and Learning
Use of open educational resources (OER) has picked up steam in higher education in recent years. At the University of Kentucky (UK), thanks to UK Libraries’ Alternative Textbook Grant Program, an increasing number of instructors have replaced traditional textbooks with OER or library-licensed resources to ensure their students’ access to essential learning materials. The instructors have gained insights and learned lessons through teaching courses with such alternative textbooks. To provide the instructors with an opportunity to share their thoughts and experiences, UK Libraries hosted a panel discussion during Open Education Week on March 8, 2018. The panelists were Dr. Brenna Byrd (Modern & Classical Languages, Literatures & Culture), Dr. Melody Danley (Biology), and Dr. Stephanie Reynolds (Information Science). Trey Conatser from the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT) facilitated the discussion, which covered these topics:
- Beyond the cost savings benefit, what else influenced your decision to adopt alternative or open texts?
- How did you identify the best ways to locate high-quality, alternative or open materials? Were there particular strategies that would benefit other faculty? How did you make sure that the new resources aligned with learning outcomes and disciplinary expectations?
- How has a different approach to educational resources changed your teaching, your course design, and/or your curriculum? What commonplaces have you interrogated?
- How did students respond to the new materials? What were the effects on engagement, learning, and student success?
- What difficulties have you encountered, and how have you responded to them? (These may be ongoing difficulties, too).
- What are your future aspirations for alternate and open resources? What other avenues would you like to explore?
Click the Download button on the right to download the video of the discussion in MP4 format. A brochure about this event is available as the additional file listed below.
Speaker's Bio
Dr. Brenna Reinhart Byrd is an Assistant Professor of German in the Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures Department at the University of Kentucky and the Southern Conference on Language Teaching 2017 Teacher of the Year. She received her PhD in Germanic Linguistics from UCLA in 2010 and has been working at the University of Kentucky since then as Director of Beginning German, overseeing the curriculum and training of instructors for the first three semesters of German. In the past four years, she has completely redesigned the beginning language sequence with the goals of improving student translingual and transcultural competence through learner-centered instruction, proficiency-based assessments, and close engagement with authentic cultural artifacts using new media. Her research interests include SLA literacy, sociolinguistics, Turkish-German identity, Hip Hop studies, computer-mediated communication, constructed languages, and historical linguistics.
Dr. Melody Danley is a Lecturer in Biology at the University of Kentucky. Previously, she was a lecturer at California State University Stanislaus. Melody received her PhD from West Virginia University in 2008. Her current teaching responsibilities include BIO 152 (second semester majors biology) and BIO 350 (upper division animal physiology, laboratory). Additionally, she currently mentors six undergraduate students in research. Their project topics range from dominance of crayfish during burrowing, to signaling through the ventral nerve cord of crayfish exposed to an anesthetic. Melody organizes and runs an after-school science club at an elementary school in Scott County and frequently volunteers as a science fair judge at the various school, county, regional, and state fairs. She also has an interest in evaluating techniques to effectively train graduate students how to teach undergraduate students scientific writing skills.
Dr. Stephanie Reynolds is in her 11th year as a faculty member in the School of Information Science. She holds a Master’s of Science in Library Science and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Science from the University of North Texas. Dr. Reynolds specializes in literature and library services for youth, teaching courses in Children’s Literature, Young Adult Literature, and Youth Literature for a Diverse Society, as well as Information in Society and Collection Development.
Trey Conatser works at the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching, where he supports faculty across the disciplines in their efforts to engage students in active and collaborative learning, to reimagine course and program curricula and outcomes, and to integrate digital technologies and pedagogies in meaningful ways for student learning. He teaches in the Graduate School's Preparing Future Faculty Program, the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies, and the Lewis Honors College. He is currently teaching a digital humanities course that uses only openly available scholarly texts and educational resources.