Final reflection on OERs for Introduction to Biology

As the term wraps up, I’m still very glad that I used OERs for my Introduction to Biology class. Mainly relying on the Open Stax Biology and Concepts of Biology resources worked well. Here are a few things that popped up as unanticipated in the last part of the term.

1) I was really excited to get questions via email, Moodle messages, and in person about from other faculty about my project. Sometimes I don’t get to collaborate with my colleagues on curriculum as much as I’d like (busy schedules, the reality of life as part-time educator). It is fun to be doing something that gets conversations started with others!

2) As the students progressed in the term, I felt like I got more and more answers on labs and exams that I didn’t necessarily anticipate. They were not incorrect, just answered at a depth that incorporated research or detail that wasn’t in the sources I provided which were at the introductory level. I give some online quizzes and exams to save class time for labs and activities and some of the assumptions I made in writing some of the questions were challenged (for example, thinking students won’t consider the minor contribution of a particular hormone to a particular disease and would focus on the big picture). I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing, but writing and grading assessments is now a bit more time consuming and occasionally correct answers can be automatically marked wrong until they are reviewed. In fairness, this sometimes happened before I used OERs exclusively in my class, but the challenges I’ve faced in this realm seem to have increased as students embraced the OER world.

3) Students that did prefer to work from printed copies of the OER wanted to know what to do with the copies at the end of the term. Some felt it was wasteful to have printed the copies out and then to have no further use. Since I plan to continue to teach the class again using the resources I’ve said that I’d pass copies along to future students.

Overall, I consider this OER project a success and I learned a lot. I’m sure I’ll use and improve what I’ve developed for this course in the future. I love the challenge of trying to make a course better every term I teach it, and with the variety of OERs available I will be able to look to these resources in supporting innovations to my courses.

Here is a quick tour of the course Moodle site that presents the OERs I used to the students:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yERIMDR2k8A&feature=youtu.be&hd=1

Midterm Realizations: It's not about the OERs? But this is so time consuming!

The OER project continues. Different advantages and disadvantages are becoming apparent as the term progresses. Overall, it seems like most of the challenges can be overcome, it just takes more time and effort than I’d anticipated. Also, I’d like to note there is a lot the OER project has not changed about my class. Labs and interactive activities still remain the focus, many of which rely little on resources outside of class.

            From my perspective, my biggest challenge is that there are not as many figures as I’m accustomed to in the main OpenStax resources I’m using. I’ve found myself spending a lot of additional time designing my own and or seeing if I can find anything in the Wikimedia commons I can adapt to include in my mini-lectures. Additionally, some of the subtle differences in the text are starting to annoy me. I find myself saying things like “Seriously, how the heck can this text not emphasize the majority of the water is adsorbed in the small intestine. Now I need to find something else that does hit on this point!” I didn’t even notice several of these minor details when reading through these sources before the term. There are some fun and current examples and cases I haven’t used in the past that I have added to my class since they are included in some of the new resources. While worthy additions, sometimes quite a bit of additional background research is needed to fully explain and incorporate these new cases.

           I asked the students what they thought of the OERs on the midterm exam (no credit for their answer, but most were happy to help). All appreciate not having to pay for a book, but there were other areas that opinions were more mixed on. Some students said they prefer to have a physical copy, since that would make them more likely to read it or would allow them to keep it for later. Those comments surprised me since I mentioned early on that they could have the relatively few chapters we use printed off. Some students seem to have done this, but for others perhaps that is just too much work for others? I’ve learned I actually miss most students bringing physical copies to class, since sometimes in lab I’d rather point to a section of the text so students can answer their own questions and/or have a physical reference point to refer back to. I didn’t realize how it would be more challenging, awkward, or time-consuming to help students navigate to needed sections on the variety of electronic devices they bring to class. Some students also don’t like going back and forth, using the multiple resources I refer to cover gaps in information here or there. I’ve tried to keep this to a minimum (since in part this is a challenge for me too!), but since there are generally fewer OER resources out there to choose from it seems like you’re less likely to find a perfect fit for your level and focus for class unless you combine multiple resources (and that is one of the points of using OERs, the freedom!).

Overall, despite these concerns, the students and I generally pleased with the OERs. I hope over time the time burden of using OERs will be reduced (though I think it will be several runs of this class before I feel my resources are even mostly set!). To put things back in perspective I was thankful that one of the most common responses on the midterm exam from my students was that resources don’t matter much in my class, and that it is what we do in class through lectures and activities that helps them to grasp material. I thank my students for reminding me to keep this project's focus in check, since comments like these help me to let go of that urge to find that perfect figure, explanation at the perfect depth, and animation that matches the vocabulary of every other resource we use. I realize these tasks may very well take the rest of my life! I'd always intended that my class not be about the textbook, so it I isn't too surprising that it's about the OERs either. Now if only I could gather those OERs a little faster and move on to piloting a few new labs!

Introduction and initial implementation

Yes, the textbook for my Intro Biology class is gone!  But why?

First, ditching the standard textbook has everything to do with my teaching philosophy. I hope students leave my class understanding the process of science, with the skills to understand research they read about, and with positive experiences that will encourage lifelong curiosity in science. I hope they have an increased ability to research and make educated decisions that relate to their health, how they vote, what they spend their money on, and how they generally live there life. My philosophy aligns well with a document called "Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call To Action" which was a report that came out of a conference organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science with support for the National Science Foundation. Along with emphasizing teaching the process of science and other skills, this report emphasizes teaching reduced number of core concepts with more depth. Most textbooks aren't designed to work this way, and I would feel guilty (and have felt guilty in the past) by asking by students to buy an expensive textbook only to use relatively small parts of it. I now feel more free to emphasize projects, give students time to design experiments, and give students opportunities to practice research skills that will still help students to answer questions now and in the future (because even these OERs will likely become dated!).

This wasn't an easy decision. First, I wanted to make sure it was ok with my department. After all, I'm a part-time instructor and there is an official text for the Introduction to Biology sequence. I proposed a meeting during Lane's inservice on the subject of OERs to our dean, which was supported by her and a number of enthusiastic full-time and part-time faculty in biology as well as Jen K, a Faculty Technology Specialist and resident OER expert. During this meeting I became much more aware of what had been done before and what people someday hoped to do. In short, I wasn't as alone as I thought in aspiring to use OERs and was definitely not the first in our department to go in this direction. I also realized that the supplemental resources I was providing to my students already in our course Moodle shell had me a lot closer to having a full OER course than I had realized. Overall, the most important message I got from the meeting is that there was a lot of enthusiasm for using OERs in the Introduction to Biology sequence, though exactly how individual instructors could work together to collaborate was still in the brainstorming phase.

Shortly after this meeting I explored a number of open resources that had been tossed around. I found the OpenStax College books and was really pleased with both the Biology and Concepts of Biology books. These particular OERs are essentially just very good textbooks, but were free! I could envision an easy transition!  I almost immediately recommended these books to students I was teaching in the fall as alternates to the text to get some initial feedback. The students that used the OpenStax resources reported that the new resources were much easier to read then the current text.

The new resources were so well received by my students that I felt strong motivation to jump in on a pilot Introduction to Biology class Winter term with the new primary OER, one that would fill the gaps between all the other "supplemental resources" that I'd always provided. I'd spent a lot of time Fall term working with a couple of other Lane instructors following a PULSE meeting (Partnership for Undergraduate Life Science Education) where we envisioned and planned improvements to our Introduction to Biology sequence with support from instructors from around the region, so felt ready for action. With the enthusiasm for OERs I saw in our department and ideas for future changes in our courses, it seemed that piloting a course using OERs focused around these OpenStax books was a great next step for someone teaching in the Introduction to Biology sequence to take.

So far this term I've....
1) Changed the course syllabus to have readings from both the Open Stax Biology and Concepts of Biology books. Since one book goes into more depth than the other, I use this on the topics we go into more depth on. We don't use most of either book, but I don't feel guilty since it is free!
2) I've transferred informational games, other sources, etc (also OERs) that have always been part of my class to the Moodle shell I'm working with. I've always used a variety of sources beyond the text.
3) Talked to students on how to work with the online text (download as PDFs, work with in EPUB format, printing options)
4*) Redone all my powerpoints to use images from the OER
5*) Revised labs, rewritten quizzes, etc. to make sure they are fully supported the the new resources.
* I will admit I'm only a week or two ahead on revising the powerpoints, labs, and exams..but that is pretty normal :).

My questions are...
1) Will other faculty follow in this adventure?
2) How will students opt to use the resources (printed PDF's, bring iPad's etc)? Will any really struggle with the technology to even print a copy of needed chapters?
3) Will students be confused by using two different texts?
4) Will students come to class more prepared since the text is more readable?
5) Is this Open Stax system too good to be true? Right now it really isn't much more challenging than adopting a new standard text book.
6) How will this new flexibility further inspire change in my class as the term progresses?

Overall, I'm hoping for an excellent term that allows me to see evidence in student work and comments that I've achieved the goals I set forth on in my teaching philosophy. I truly believe this world will be an incrementally better place if students leave my class understanding the process of science, with the skills to understand research they read about, and with positive experiences that will encourage lifelong curiosity in science. I hope by the end of this term I will be an incrementally better instructor, learning both from my students and from adapting my class to using OERs.