Editor's Note: This post by Tracy Amaral-Tracey explores the effects of unaffordable course materials on student success and the process of transitioning a course from traditional materials to openly licensed and other free materials.
Author: Tracy Amaral-Tracey, CSCC-Quinebaug Valley and Bristol Community College
As an undergraduate student in the English program at a small liberal arts college, I lived for the moment at the start of each semester when I’d walk through the campus bookstore and pick up the latest Norton Anthology, used or otherwise. I loved the tissue-thin pages and microscopic font, and as an avid reader, I couldn’t wait to dive in. Something about the heft of that textbook felt like college to me.
A combination of factors helped make book purchases just one of many concrete rituals of higher education in my mind, not the least of which was that I was the first person in my family to go to college, so I made it up as I went along. I associated the routines and paraphernalia typical of campus life with being a real college student and only felt ready to begin a new semester when my financial aid was properly processed, allowing me to spend hundreds of scholarship, grant, and loan dollars on books.
My transformation to a devoted supporter of Open Educational Resources started with some casual observations and insights from the classroom and culminated with a big COVID-inspired shift in thinking.
When I began teaching first-year English courses back in 2011, I relied on what had been my own go-to source for learning– an excellent textbook.
Although I used my own materials for direct instruction, created writing assignments on my own or in collaboration with colleagues, and supplemented the text with articles from the news, college library subscriptions, and internet sources, I still required the purchase of a big book, too. For a newer faculty member, the text provided a sense of organization and helped me feel confident that I addressed the most fundamental course outcomes in a neat and tidy fashion.
However, it quickly became clear that textbook access would be an issue. Each semester, students spoke to me privately to discuss a variety of funding delays, all with the same outcome: no book. For some, approaching a new professor about anything at the start of their very first foray into higher education was extremely difficult, but disclosing an inability to complete initial assignments on time almost always caused visible anxiety. Learning that it would be, at best, a week or two before a student could purchase the text posed real challenges. Despite the best intentions, many students were unable to get started on the right foot and only a rare few were able to catch up in the end, purely by beginning work on a comeback story three weeks into the semester. In other cases, I’d hear about a previous class experience where a textbook was purchased and never used; the student hoped or assumed the same would be true for my class, and so never purchased the book. Despite fervent promises to procure that required material before our next meeting, the text rarely appeared for those who had never intended to buy one. Worse yet, attendance for students without books often petered out toward the halfway point of the semester, as missing or partially completed assignments piled up.
In March of 2020 when face-to-face classes suddenly shifted online, I, like so many college educators, faced a stark situation. Offering different learning options to students with whom I could no longer meet, who had never chosen to take an online English class, made it obvious that a print textbook was only going to be the most effective option for some students, and even then, only regarding certain topics. I began a relentless search for materials that covered course topics in new ways. Some students loved their print textbooks, but others preferred to view or listen to recorded lectures, read short online articles with optional tutorials, or watch instructional videos.
I began investigating how to incorporate OER and Open Access materials into my teaching, and for my remaining time as an online-only instructor, I made the switch to using them exclusively. As soon as I could, I signed up to participate in a free professional development opportunity offered by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education’s OER Advisory Council, where I was given the chance to learn about the compelling equity-based reasons to switch to OER. At the conclusion of the training, participants reviewed OER textbooks relevant to their fields of expertise through the Open Text Library. Having previously been in possession of nothing more than a passing awareness of OER, I admit that I was pleasantly shocked to be working with a selection process similar to one I’d implement for a print textbook from a publisher. I found several solid options to review, including the OpenStax Writing Guide and the Oregon Writes Open Writing Text, both of which I could realistically use in my teaching of required composition courses.
When I resumed face-to-face teaching in the Fall of 2021, I worked with campus librarians and joined a committee to help develop a department-wide OER repository that is housed within Blackboard. Based on my observations in over a decade of work in higher education, I believed in the value of removing financial obstacles to course materials, but I came back to the classroom armed with a new appreciation for the wealth of quality free and reliable resources available for flexible use with students; I felt ready to make the break official. I was able to pick and choose from a variety of OER textbooks, taking what I believed to be the best of each one. Later, I enhanced these options by supplementing textbook content with Open Access sources such as YouTube videos and articles from a variety of news and popular media websites. Through the colleges’ learning management systems, I organized, categorized, and collected whole units of information to share with students, leaving behind traditional textbooks entirely.
Three years later, I continue to seek ways to collaborate with colleagues and learn more about OER because of the abundance of information and resources available. I simply don’t want to miss out on the chance to use something great.
In informal student feedback about OER use in my classes, I’ve heard countless times how frustrating and discouraging it can be when a course requires the purchase of a textbook that is rarely, if ever, used. Students also share how often they seek out online videos on their own to try to master difficult concepts if the information from their pricey text doesn’t help enough. Still others appreciate the value of online readings and viewing materials that tie closely to engaging course themes or solely because the topics feel more current. And of course, many students prefer accessing their course materials digitally so they can complete assignments during valuable free minutes on the go. Free course materials mean each student has a reasonable chance to begin a new semester adequately equipped in one more way.
The process of making the change to using OER can seem daunting. Despite my strong feelings about the importance of making course materials free and easily accessible to students, I do know that there are times when the OER road might not be the easiest option, and that there are courses where a specific textbook purchase might still make sense. The seemingly endless options can be overwhelming, almost as if there are too many resources to evaluate and choose from. By asking around and chatting with colleagues about how they used OER, I got my feet wet, and from there, I sought out more formal collaboration opportunities, all of which made the process more manageable for me.
For myself, I’ve learned that the most important thing about choosing course materials is not necessarily the associated trappings or the process intended to help transform a person into a cookie-cutter idea of a college learner, stack of heavy books and all. I’ll probably continue to dust off my twenty-year-old Norton anthologies every once in a while, just for fun, and I naturally gravitate toward some OER works that offer simultaneous options to view more traditionally organized texts in online, PDF, or low-cost print versions because I still do love a good textbook. But, I’m trying to learn everything I can about the student experience of course materials. The use of OER has been a game changer for me and one of the best things to come out of my COVID teaching semesters. I’m continuing to challenge myself to step outside my comfort zone, wherever that zone might be at any given time, looking for opportunities to learn about new practices, course materials, and approaches so that I can more effectively reach and teach the greatest number of students.
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