FAculty Collaborations for Course TransformationS

The FACCTS project includes a component to link the work of the Course Redesign teams into initiatives in Open Educational Resources, where the Hewlett Foundation’s leadership has played a prominent role in advancing both knowledge and practice. This Subproject will be led by Dr. Steve Reed.

The OER Alternate Pedagogies Subproject adds a pilot study to link the design and use of open educational resources more explicitly with cognitive science research to address alternate routes to learning mathematics, such as visual thinking and concrete embedding in problem contexts. Currently, most faculty seeking to use open educational resources appear to look for resources which fit their existing pedagogical models[1]. The use of open educational resources applying these alternate pedagogies could add significant value to course redesign projects, both in the short term to address student needs and in the longer term to advance faculty understanding of alternate pedagogies.

A good example of an open educational resource featuring alternate pedagogies is the Animation Tutor, created at CRMSE with support from the National Science Foundation. It currently consists of eight modules that encourage and support visual thinking through virtual manipulation and simulation to help people reason about mathematics. Research in cognitive science formed the basis for its design and formative evaluations in mathematics classes at Southwestern Community College formed the basis for its improvement[2].

Each module provides instruction on a particular situation, such as population growth, rather than on a particular mathematical procedure such as exponential functions. One advantage is that users can more easily use visualization to compare and contrast different mathematical content. A second advantage is that focusing on situations emphasizes the application of mathematics and its usefulness to other subject areas: biology using the Population Growth module or finance using the Personal Finance module.

In this exploratory study, the OER Alternate Pedagogies Subproject team will work with the three faculty teams to investigate how the needs of their students could be addressed with open educational resources which embed alternate pedagogies beyond the typical current methods for developmental mathematics. The outcome of this study will be an outline of potential applications for open educational resources to address individual student needs, enhance course outcomes and extend faculty teaching expertise – using visual thinking, contextual simulations, subject-specific problem scenarios, etc.

[1] Harley, D., Use and Users of Digital Resources, EDUCAUSE Quarterly 30(4) pp. 12-20. See also Charlesworth, A., Ferguson, N., Schmoller, S., Smith, N, and Tice, R.(2007) Sharing E-Learning Content, A Synthesis and Commentary, Project Report to the Joint Information Systems Committee, September 2007.

[2] Reed, S. K. (2005). From research to practice and back: The Animation Tutor project. Educational Psychology Review, 17, 55-82.

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