Open Education 2015

Open education breaks down barriers to access for students, but it can also be a powerful tool for improving faculty instruction. The North Carolina State University Libraries' Alt-Textbook project charges instructors to ""do something a traditional textbook can't"" and NCSU faculty have responded with amazing projects that use video, crowdsourcing, and student-centered practice for powerful, tailored, and innovative instruction.

Will Cross, Director of Copyright & Digital Scholarship, will introduce the program and the Libraries' support for open education as a tool not just for cost-saving, but for shaping the future of education. As examples of the transformative power of OER, NCSU faculty members Dr. Maria Gallardo-Williams (chemistry) and Dr. Michael Evans (education) will discuss their innovative projects that span disciplines and leverage digital technologies to connect faculty teaching with student needs in exciting new ways.

Gallardo-Williams will introduce her SMART Organic Chemistry Lab Video Books: a project that partners with students to develop lab training materials in response to student needs for better instructional resources, and delivers them in a free, easy-to-access format. In SMART (Student-Made Assistance Ready Technology) labs, information is everywhere and can be accessed in many different ways and formats.

Evans will describe his graduate course in Online Collaborations in Education that engages graduate students in the collaborative creation of an academic resource that serves the pedagogy of connected, participatory learning. Evans' work combines research, pedagogy, and student-centered outcomes to chart a course into new forms of teaching, assessment, and dissemination.

Join us for a discussion of open education as a tool that has empowered instructors to explore and develop new models for teaching and learning and to explore sterling examples of faculty projects that wouldn't be possible with closed, print, commercial materials. The future of education is in development, and it's open.