There is no “typical” student; how can we design courses that meet varied student needs? Traditional textbooks and other instructional materials with all rights reserved can often be difficult to make accessible or flexible enough to engage a diverse group of students. Join us to hear how open educational practices (OEP) including OER adoption can support accessibility of instructional materials and enable student-centered course design methodologies such as universal design for learning (UDL).
Tara Bunag from the University of the Pacific discovered she had a student, who is blind, enrolled in her graduate statistics course just weeks before semester start. Unable to get the traditional statistics textbook converted to a screen-readable format in that timeframe, she turned to the OpenStax Introductory Statistics text which was digital, accessible, and free online. Integrating multiple OER with tactile resources and open data sets, she was able to achieve a more effective learning experience.
Suzanne Wakim of Butte Community College will share how she uses open educational practices to design courses based on the principles of UDL to increase student choice, encourage critical thinking, and improve learning outcomes. These practices include giving students various ways of acquiring information, interacting with the content, and demonstrating understanding. The result has been far more engaging for both students and teacher.
When: Wednesday, April 11th, 11am PT/ 2pm ET
Featured Speakers:
Tara Bunag, PhD., Senior Instructional Designer, University of the Pacific
Suzanne Wakim, OER Coordinator, Honors Chair, Biology Faculty, Butte Community College