Category: spring2012 finals

I joined this cohort to take Effective Learning 115 through the OER process. I was teaching that course in Spring. I taught about 2 weeks of the course using an OER material but my mind boggled on the rest. It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t find materials as I wasn’t sure how I wanted to restructure the course once I freed myself from a text.

Over the summer I changed my focus to College Prep Reading (80), which has more limited focus but much curriculum in common with EL115. I am teaching a hybrid section this fall, with no textbook.

I have restructured the course. In the past I assigned a text that describes how to do each reading skill with drill and practice of components, plus a reader with sample college text chapters to practice combined skills.

Instead, I am using demonstration screencasts to teach skills and prezis for concepts. I will be asking students to video class demonstrations as well so I will have a full library for students to choose from. There are sample texts online to use for integrated skills practice and the LCC library hold current texts behind the reference desk so that students can see them and I can pdf portions that show relevant features. I also have samples of work for a “touch box” (an idea I am borrowing from LCC’s Anatomy and Physiology “touch room.”)

Here is my OER screencast.

Thanks to Jen for continuing support and encouragement. Typing the words “Textbook: None” brought me great joy and has already brought joy to my students.

Wow! I finally finished the converison of my Writing 95 (Paragraph to Essay) writing course and created a screencast to explain the process.  

Here is the Youtube link: http://youtu.be/js8IuktvdZg

(I’m sorry it turned out to be 13 minutes).

Thanks to Jen Klaudinyi and the Fellowship for both the structured opportunity and the help in getting this accomplished! I am a natural procrastinator, but this Fellowship Project gave me the momentum & encouragement to get the task accomplished.

I also really want to thank the ASLCC student body for voting to fund this opportunity and “invest” in faculty. I am in the process of finishing up a Digital Story project called “Why OER?” featuring an interiview with ASLCC rep Corinne Mooney explaining why the student government supports OER. I’ll post the link to this (later) on my blog. 

I learned so much this term from fellow participants, and have enjoyed reading the huge variety of blogs. I’d like to give a shout out to fellow writing-faculty bloggers Lucia Akdeniz, Jen Kepka, and Chris Roethle: I have incorporated many of your suggested resources into my class.

Twenty false-starts later, my screencast is finished and uploaded to YouTube!  Here is the link (and sorry it is so long — I will talk forever if no one makes me stop):

-Chris R.

Here’s my final take, for now.

I also loaded this to Merlot…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOVleQQYPV0

Dear Spring cohort 2012,

During the Summer term, I am going textbook free for WR 90.  The material I will be using is available online, including exercises and tutorials. In class, I am structuring an environment focused on presentations, workshops, discussions of concepts and techniques, and task-based learning.  No more poring over textbooks.  I am still in the process of working out the little details. I will post more throughout the summer.