Are you teaching synchronously this term and want to learn and share tips, techniques, success and lessons learned?<\/p>\n
Please sign up to attend this webinar session on Friday, February 5, 2021, 10:30am – 12pm<\/strong> via WebEx (link provided Questions? Contact Aura Lippincott (lippincotta@wcsu.edu)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/li> Open Educational Resources<\/strong>, as defined by the\u00a0Hewlett Foundation<\/a>, are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their\u00a0free use and repurposing<\/u>\u00a0by others.<\/p>\n Students<\/strong>\u00a0can access OERs for zero cost, download and keep a digital copy, and print or purchase a low-cost hardcopy.\u00a0Educators<\/strong>\u00a0can curate, tailor, and share OERs to perfectly suit their curriculum and share their innovations freely.\u00a0Authors<\/strong>\u00a0can disseminate their work to a worldwide audience while still receiving attribution.\u00a0Creative Commons Licensing<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0facilitates flexibility in usage of OER. \u00a0David Wiley created a framework (5Rs) that allows authors to retain copyright while encouraging\/allowing\u00a0reuse, revision, remixing, or redistribution<\/a>.<\/p>\n There is significant financial benefit to students and university. According to the\u00a0US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS),<\/a>\u00a0from January 2006 to July 2016 the Consumer Price Index for college tuition and fees increased 63 percent, compared with an increase of 21 percent for all items. Over that period, consumer prices for college textbooks increased 88 percent. The\u00a0US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG)<\/a>\u00a0reported that students spend average of about $1200 annual for textbooks, about 65% of students said that they had decided against buying a textbook because it was too expensive, and 48% of students said that the cost of textbooks impacted how many\/which classes they took each semester. Research shows open textbooks, compared to traditional texts, have equal or better student performance\/learning outcomes and equal or improved student retention rates\/graduation rates.<\/p>\n An\u00a0Open Ed Group<\/a>\u00a0summary of 25 studies focused on efficacy, perceptions, or both efficacy and perception stated that \u201ca general finding seems to be that roughly half of teachers and students find OER to be comparable to traditional resources, a sizeable minority believe they are superior, and a smaller minority find them inferior.\u201d Studies conducted at\u00a0Virginia State University<\/a>\u00a0(Business) and\u00a0Houston Community College<\/a>\u00a0(Psychology) found that students who used open textbooks tended to have higher grades and lower withdrawal rates than their peers who used traditional textbooks<\/p>\n Open textbook collections have peer reviewed text books freely available for use in a class. The\u00a0University of Minnesota Open Textbook Library<\/a>\u00a0has over 300 open texts.\u00a0OpenStax,<\/a>\u00a0a non-profit publisher of open textbooks, offers a collection of about 30 online texts with option to acquire print copies at low cost. These are customizable to institutional preferences in collaboration with OpenStax. Over 840 institutions worldwide are using OpenStax.<\/p>\n For more information, visit the WCSU Libraries\u2019\u00a0Open Education Resources Guide<\/a>\u00a0or contact your\u00a0WCSU librarian<\/a>.<\/p>\n UNESCO Image<\/a>\u00a0used under\u00a0Creative Commons License<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li> And now let\u2019s get started!<\/p>\n The first category in the scorecard is Course Overview and Information. The ten practices in this category are related to ensuring that learners in your online course have the information that they need \u2013 from day 1 of the course (or before) \u2013 to begin the learning experience.<\/p>\n \u201cRecommendation #1. Course includes Welcome and Getting Started content.<\/p>\n Explanation: By welcoming learners to the course and providing context for what they will be learning, the instructor sets a tone for success from the start of the course. Learners benefit from an overview of the course, with general information about the nature and purpose of the course, the course activities, grading structure, and where to find the specific information on each.\u201d<\/p>\n Reflect for a moment on how you conduct your first class session for an on-ground campus course.\u00a0 Do you introduce yourself?\u00a0 Do you go over the syllabus, provide a big picture overview of the course, and then point out the activities\/tasks learners should focus on first? Do you get your students excited and engaged by sharing your enthusiasm about the subject matter? In an online class, there may not be a first class meeting.\u00a0 Instead, learners login to your Blackboard course and that is the start of class.\u00a0Consider that students may be disoriented and overwhelmed when they first login. It may be their\u00a0first time using Blackboard, or your course may look completely different than their last online course. Couple this with the anxiety, fear, or excitement that some learners experience when starting a\u00a0new course. \u00a0Who is the instructor? What will be expected of me? \u00a0What is the course about? \u00a0Where should I start?\u00a0 What if I miss something?<\/p>\n Since your online students don\u2019t have a person (you) standing right there at a prescribed class time to provide clues and cues about what the next 16 weeks will be about, how might you welcome learners into the online learning environment and get them started?<\/p>\n This is where Welcome and Getting Started information comes in.\u00a0 An increasingly common practice is to have a section labeled\u00a0Start Here.\u00a0<\/strong>This section contains everything that your students need to know about the course \u2013 what the course is about (course overview and context), what the expectations are (major assignments and grading criteria), course schedule and required material, technical requirements, and campus resources (including ADA accommodations).\u00a0 \u00a0You might include a video welcome message to get your students excited about what is coming and engaged in the first course activities. Your welcome message also helps to establish your presence in the course and provides a way for your students to connect to you.\u00a0 This could be considered your first class \u201csession\u201d \u2013 what do you want to impress upon your students and what impression do you want to make about who you are as a teacher?<\/p>\n Conrad (2002) found that online learners\u2019 immediate \u201csense of well-being\u00a0and engagement\u201d is dependent on their connection with the learning materials. Instructors are judged on the clarity and completeness with which their course details are presented.\u201d\u00a0 Think about Welcome and Getting Started information as your first opportunity to positively impact your students\u2019 well-being and engagement, and to launch them to learning success!<\/p>\n Resources and References<\/p>\n Whether you are an experienced online instructor\u00a0or facing your very first\u00a0online course, the OLC\/Open SUNY\u00a0OSCQR Course Design Review Scorecard<\/a>\u00a0is a valuable tool for course design, revision, and continual improvement.<\/p>\n With 50 recommendations (organized into six categories), the scorecard can feel overwhelming. \u00a0Over the next several months, we will explore the scorecard, 1 recommendation\u00a0at a time.<\/p>\n Your ideas and comments about this series are welcome. If you would like to share examples of how you applied an OSCQR\u00a0recommendation in your course, please consider contributing a short blog post to the series. \u00a0Contact Leslie Lindenauer or Aura Lippincott to get started!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/li>
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<\/p>\nThis is the first in a series of blog posts exploring the\u00a0OLC\/Open Suny OSCQR\u00a0Scorecard<\/a>\u00a0for online course design and review \u2013 recommendation by recommendation until we reach #50.\u00a0 Your ideas and comments about this series are welcome. If you would like to share examples of how you applied an OSCQR\u00a0recommendation in your course, please consider contributing a short blog post to the series.<\/h5>\n
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