Abstract:

Current equity gaps in higher education are believed to be attributed to various factors, including lack of cultural diversity in the content of textbooks, lack of involvement by students in their studies’ content development, and cost of textbooks. To address these concerns, this Open Education Resources (OER) In Higher Education Classroom training will provide information regarding higher education materials that:

1. Provide more diversity in the narrative and course content in higher education, so students may see themselves represented in their textbooks and are able to identify more readily with their textbook materials and resources.
2. Provide students opportunities to engage in research related to their areas of studies using culturally responsive materials.
3. Allow faculty opportunities to work with other entities in their institutions to enhance collaboration in and outside the classrooms.
4. Provide students textbooks and other content material at no or minimal cost to the students.

The training provided will detail the vision of OER-supported courses. It will address the issues of diversity, inclusion, and equity in higher education classrooms. It will discuss enhanced student learning and student success strategies. It will allow for local authorship of some of the instructional materials used in the classrooms and access to relevant local information and statistics for inclusion in the instructional content. Provided for faculty and students will be supplemental materials that include videos, websites, and additional lecture content. It will address the intentional imbedding of goal setting, study skills, and mindset material as part of the regular course instructional material and not just supplemented as add- on by instructors or in the preface of the textbook that is used at instructors’ discretion.

Keywords:

OER, Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, Goal Setting, Mindset.