Curriculum & Instruction Textbooks

Contextualised open educational practices: Towards student agency and self-directed learning

Contributors: Olivier, du Toit-Brits, Bunt, and Dhakulkar

Publisher: AOSIS Publishing

License: CC BY

This book covers original research on the implementation of open educational practices through the use of open educational resources at the university level. The emphasis on open education in this book is on contextualising resources, supporting student agency and fostering self-directed learning specifically within a South African milieu. The envisaged chapters cover conceptual and review research and empirical work focussing on open educational practices and the use of renewable assessments. The work starts off with an overview of an institutional-wide open education project that prompted the research followed by research on open education in terms of various modules in the health science, music education, law, philosophy, dietetics, anthropology, French language learning, journalism and political science. There is a clear gap in the literature on open education in terms of open educational practices, specifically in terms of contextualising resources, supporting student agency and fostering self-directed learning in a South African context. Despite the existence of some general works on open education in terms of policy, social justice and open textbooks, this book will be unique in exploring the intersections of openness, specifically with contextualisation, student agency and self-directedness.

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Supporting Technology Integration for School Leaders

Contributor: Pitler

Publisher: EdTech Books

License: CC BY-NC

This Open Educational Resource (OER) textbook is written as the primary resource for a 3-hour graduate course delivered online by The Teachers College at Emporia State University. The course is designed to prepare school leaders (teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, etc.) for the integration and application of diverse educational technologies into classrooms and schools in ways that reflect a theoretical, research-based, and practical understanding of curriculum development and the effective uses of technology. The course explores practical ways to integrate technology into both teaching and learning and the critical importance of adequate training and professional development for successful integration. This intensive course is delivered completely online over a seven-week period using Canvas. Canvas is a web-based learning management system or LMS. It is used by learning institutions, educators, and students to access and manage online course learning materials and communicate skill development and learning achievement.

(1 review)

Intersections of Open Educational Resources and Information Literacy

Contributors: Cullen and Dill

Publisher: Association of College and Research Libraries

License: CC BY-NC-SA

"The present volume is timely not only because it models creative and effective strategies to advance both open education and information literacy, but especially because it poses critical questions and urges practitioners to go well beyond questions of access to and the use of information. It demands reflection on what is being accessed (and what is not), who is gaining access (and who is not), who is providing access (and who is not), and what the goal is of this access (and what lies beyond access)."—from the Foreword by Rajiv S. Jhangiani Information literacy skills are key when finding, using, adapting, and producing open educational resources (OER). Educators who wish to include OER for their students need to be able to find these resources and use them according to their permissions. When open pedagogical methods are employed, students need to be able to use information literacy skills as they compile, reuse, and create open resources. Intersections of Open Educational Resources and Information Literacy captures current open education and information literacy theory and practice and provides inspiration for the future. Chapters include practical applications, theoretical musings, literature reviews, and case studies and discuss social justice issues, collaboration, open pedagogy, training, and advocacy. The book is divided into six parts:

(2 reviews)

Using Open Educational Resources to Promote Social Justice

Contributors: Adams, Anderson, Becknell, Ivory, and Pashia

Publisher: Association of College and Research Libraries

License: CC BY-NC

As so often is the case, the idea for this book came from a twisting path. Not long after we began collaborating and presenting together at conferences, we were invited to draft a chapter on critical race theory (CRT) in academic libraries. An invited chapter is, of course, very flattering, so we proceeded without much thought to who the publisher would be. Angela had been working on social justice issues for a while at that point, while CJ had a wealth of expertise on open educational resources (OER). We merged our two areas of expertise in drafting that chapter, discussing OER as an opportunity to not only save students money but incorporate CRT into the curriculum—both in content and in practice.

(1 review)

Game Based and Adaptive Learning Strategies

Contributors: Miller, Batsaikhan, and Pluskwik

Publisher: Minnesota State Colleges and Universities

License: CC BY-NC

This book is designed to accompany a graduate-level instructional design course: Game-Based and Adaptive Learning, but could also be used for undergraduate teacher education or instructional design courses.

(1 review)

Technology in Schools

Contributor: Ackerman

Publisher: hackscience.education

License: CC BY-NC

My purpose in writing this book is to give readers a view into the work of managing information technology in schools. IT professionals will notice differences (some nuanced and some significant) between the needs and expectations of IT users in business and IT in school. With the more complete and more accurate concept the nature of the computing environment necessary for successful schooling, which I intend to provide through this book, IT professionals will be better prepared to meet those needs. Educators will also benefit from this book by clarifying the nature of their IT needs and how these may be different from those that are familiar to IT professionals who are hired to work in your school.

(1 review)

Opening Eyes onto Inclusion and Diversity

Contributors: Carter, Abawi, and Lawrence

Publisher: University of Southern Queensland

License: CC BY-NC

Susan Carter; Professor Lindy-Anne Abawi; Professor Jill Lawrence; Associate Professor Charlotte Brownlow; Renee Desmarchelier; Melissa Fanshawe; Kathryn Gilbey; Michelle Turner; and Jillian Guy

(2 reviews)

The Asynchronous Cookbook

Publisher: Office of Digital Learning & Inquiry, Middlebury College

License: CC BY-NC-SA

Whether you're teaching mostly in person but looking for some regular, asynchronous activities to add to your course, or teaching a fully online course, this resource is for you. The activities in this cookbook draw on research and good practice in online course design to provide recipes - concise and specific instructions and examples - for adding asynchronous activities to a course. Meaningful interaction between students and instructors is a key ingredient in all of these recipes.

(5 reviews)

Mathematics Methods for Early Childhood

Contributor: Stramel

Publisher: Fort Hays State University

License: CC BY

Welcome to Early Childhood Mathematics! This course satisfies the Early Childhood Unified requirements in the state of Kansas for a teaching license Birth to Grade 3.

(2 reviews)

Teaching Early and Elementary STEM

Contributors: Lange, Robertson, Price, and Craven

Publisher: East Tennessee State University

License: CC BY-NC

This Open Access Educational textbook, "Teaching Early and Elementary STEM", was written to support pre-service early childhood and elementary teachers in their journey to become facilitators of science, technology, engineering, and math, or “STEM,” and "integrated STEM" in their future classrooms. Students who read and use this text will deepen their understanding of “STEM” and “integrated STEM,” learn what early childhood and elementary students need to know and be able to do in relation to STEM, and understand ways to create activity plans and implement current research-based approaches to teaching and pedagogy. This text arose out of our Early/Elementary STEM Collaboration project, which started in 2017 with the intention of increasing the quality of teacher preparation in STEM across early childhood and elementary education. The team is composed of math and science education professors, classroom in-service teachers, and pre-service teachers in pre-school through fifth grade. We are driven by the values of collaboration, strengths-based approaches to teaching and learning, constructivist philosophy of teaching and learning, and applied STEM experiences to increase access and equity. Our model of preparing pre-service teachers has been published elsewhere in more detail (Robertson, Nivens, & Lange, 2019). We built this open access product to include the following: 1) completely new content that includes input from our team as well as examples of integrated STEM learning experiences; 2) adaptations of existing resources, and; 3) compilations of existing free resources (e.g., Next Generation Science Standards).

(1 review)