Faculty Workshop Part I: Making the Case for Open Education (Essential)
In Module 2, we talked about the Workshop Strategy as essential to engaging faculty in open education and reviewing an open textbook in the Open Textbook Library. Here, watch Founder and Executive Director of the OEN, Dr. Dave Ernst, offer the first part of the workshop on making the case for open education. As you will see, this portion of the workshop defines the problem:
- The cost of and way of funding higher education is different than ever before.
- The high cost of textbooks is the one part of cost of higher education where faculty have agency.
- Students avoid the cost of textbooks in a number of ways.
- The high cost of textbooks negatively impacts student academic success.
While these four points are central to this part of the workshop, notice the ways Dr. Ernst pairs data with stories, shares both national and local data, and avoids blaming anyone for the current state of affairs. This effective and constructive way of talking about open is essential to the OEN's method for engaging and empowering faculty.
Activity: Localizing Your Deck
It's important to customize or localize the slide deck for use on your own campuses. Nothing will connect your faculty to the urgency and importance of these issues than stories and data that reflect your community. Here, you will find step-by-step instructions to localize your own Faculty workshop deck to use in presentations or conversations on your campus. Remember, all of the OEN's materials are CC-BY, so you are welcome to make these changes as long as you include attribution.
Directions: Please make a copy of the master faculty deck Links to an external site. and customize the following slides:
1. Update the mission statement slide with your own mission statement, calling out those words that reflect a commitment to access, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
2. Update the state funding slide by using this state-by-state slide funding deck Links to an external site. to copy and paste your state's slide. When you find your state's slide, you can simply copy and paste the entire slide into your deck, but when the Import Slides graphic comes up, choose "No" for auto-linking.
3. Insert a picture of your own food bank in order to localize this next slide.
4. In order to reflect the cost of books and supplies at your institution, Google "cost of attendance" at your institution, and then look at the breakdown for books and supplies. All institutions are required to report these costs.
5. Students speaking about their struggle to afford school are very powerful. If you have your own student video, please use it!
You can likely find other ways of localizing the slide deck and data therein to make the content even more relevant to your constituents. If you'd like to see other sample student videos, please check out this playlist Links to an external site. as well as tips Links to an external site. on how to create your own student video.
Additional Resources on Affordability
U.S. PIRG Fixing the Broken Textbook Market Report Links to an external site.
Myth of Students Working Their Way through School report Links to an external site.
Data on Student Loan Debt from the Federal Reserve Links to an external site.