“Collaborative Open Textbook Development Through Student Engagement: An Innovative Approach to OER” was the title of the Open Ed 2021 session I watched tonight. Yang Wu is the Open Resource Librarian at Clemson. Mathew Boyer is a Research Associate Professor and Leah Wiitablake are in the Deparment of Engineering and Science Education at Clemson. Wu, Boyer, and Wiitablake received an open textbook grant and are also supported by BME, ABB Robotics, South Carolina Department of Commerce, and PASCAL. The project has the goal of addressing a major gap area in robotics and for higher level and graduate engineering courses. Wu also explained that OER can be tailored to support local and regional workforce development. Through their project, they also seek to support diversity and inclusion in “an expanding STEM field.” Wu shared data from studies showing a decline in student use of textbooks. Wu talked about a lack of educational research on the use of OER in this field. Wiitablake spoke about how the project involves undergraduate and graduate students collaborating with faculty in mechanical engineering and robotics. They spoke about collaborative design defining it as “an iterative, inclusive process that brings different people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives together into an equitable community of practice engaging in the creation process through respectful collaboration and shared outcomes.” Boyer talked about learner-centerdness so that learners “collaborate with others to learn in context, use their prior experiences and existing knowledge, actively engage in creating knowledge, have agency in the learning process, construct knowledge through experience, develop domain skills to accompany knowledge, reflect on their learning.” Boyer mentioned that UDL “aims to change the environment rather than the learner.” Using the CAST diagram we frequently think about when it comes to UDL, Boyer spoke about providing multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression. The timeline displayed included the development of the textbooks and resources. They also hope to build a community of practice with student and faculty creators and educational researchers. Boyer spoke about ways to assess student engagement an learning. I appreciate the review they provided and informatin about the project. I love the consideration of how to meaningfully engage students and be respectful of their needs. This came up today!
