What are less commonly taught languages? Open Ed 2021 hosted a panel moderated by Regina Gong entitled: “Supporting OER Creation in the Least Commonly Taught Languages.” The panelists included Ayman Mohamed, Shannon Quinn, Rajiv Ranjan, and Sadam Issa. All the panelists were from Michigan State University and OER Award Recipients. Gong described the OER program at Michigan State: the primary goal is to reduce student costs, support faculty and OER, and provide technical support for instructors to take OER “beyond replacing the existing textbooks to exciting pedagogical practices and models…” The OER Award Program does have several levels ranging in funding from $1,000 (adoption of existing OER) to $5,000 for expanding and scaling up OER adoption. The platform they use for publishing is Pressbooks. Gong reported ten titles and more being reviewed for accessibility and copyediting. I love this and wish we had that option and the time to create an accessible and interactive textbook. Issa discussed the creation of and implementation of an OER for the ARB 101 course to teach undergraduates Arabic in their first semester. The resource includes H5P modules for students to assess their learning. Mohamed built an Elementary Arabic resource that has communicative exercises with H5P, and they used this resource in online and hybrid courses. Quinn developed a Russian 202 Russian Bridge Course resource. Ranjan developed two resources. A basic Hindi OER that is interactive, theme-based for beginning language learners. The book, Rajan mentioned, is designed to allow learners to interact with the resource at their own pace. Ranjan then wrote Basic Urdu 1. Issa responded to the first question: what made you decide to write an OER? They discussed how they wanted to teach new learners this language. Mohamed and Quinn both mentioned creating something they could improve and share. Ranjan talked about helping students develop cultural competence. The second question asked of the panelists was how they decided on the structure and pedagogy of the OER. Mohamed explained that they wanted to be transparent about the objectives and learner progress. Quinn talked about moving learners from strategies and tools to interpret texts ranging in difficulty from cartoons to sitcoms. Ranjan explained how they brainstormed the structure and modules of the OER section. Gong summarized that the panelists focused OER rich in interactivity to do the learning self-paced. Mohamed answered the question “what was your experience when you taught this OER that you created for the first time?” that students were able to come to class to “activate” their learning. Quinn built on this by saying that the OER helped support a flipped model. Issa described how students now had access to printed materials. In response to the prompt, what did you learn from your experience, several emotions, and expanding their understanding? Several thanked Regina Gong for the ongoing support. Gong explained that a future goal is to have labels for courses with OERs during enrollment. All panelists had goals of further refining their OERs and adding culturally-relevant examples and maybe even videos/resources from their personal travels. I will have to check out these resources on MSU’s Pressbooks site to learn how they embed H5P and other resources.
