Empowering equitable learning through open educational resources
Article Highlights
- The Open Educational Resource (OER) textbook aims to address financial challenges and promote equitable learning access.
- Hedges' initiative stemmed from an anonymous poll revealing that a significant portion of her students couldn't afford the required textbook.
- The passion project took a year and a half to complete.
It started off as an anonymous poll asking if students were planning to purchase the course textbook or not. For Valerie Hedges, who teaches the two Introduction to Neuroscience courses (NEU 301 and 302), the results were shocking.
"I was surprised to learn that consistently, nearly a third of the students in the class would not be planning on purchasing the textbook, which would be used for the next two semesters," said Hedges, an assistant professor in the Department of Physiology. "The poll also asked if the textbook was cost prohibitive, and about 25 percent of the students in the course indicated it was."
This got Hedges thinking about ways to close this gap and make the classroom more equitable for her students. Hedges embarked on a transformative endeavor that would culminate in her Open Educational Resource, or OER, textbook.
The idea of OER is creating high-quality learning materials that is free to access and can be redistributed to others. This ethos of collaboration and knowledge sharing has resulted in a vast collection of textbooks, research papers, articles, and interactive multimedia that cater to diverse educational needs.
“Though I was only intending on adopting an already published OER, I found that none of the neuroscience OERs available covered all the topics that we discussed in NEU 301 and NEU 302,” Hedges said. “After speaking with the OER Librarian at MSU, Regina Gong, she encouraged me to make my own text that would encompass all the topics that I wanted my students to have access to and would be specifically catered to my learning objectives in my course.”
The advantages of free online texts have been a welcomed resource for students. Financially disadvantaged learners can now breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that they can access crucial learning materials without straining their limited budgets.
“Even though I am fortunate enough to have a parent who can help with college funds, I recognize there is not a lot of students who can obtain this type of help,” said recent neuroscience graduate Kaiden Ditchman, who took Hedges’ courses in 2022 and 2023. “Using these resources is crucial to ensure students success, as it helps those who are struggling to make ends meet not have to worry about extra expenses even after having to pay a large sum of money for tuition.”
Neuroscience major Matthew Spaulding agrees, too.
“The unfortunate consequence is that cost of textbooks is underestimated and can decrease available funds for base necessities like groceries,” said Spaulding who graduated this past spring. “This creates inequalities in who succeeds as lack of nutrition and financial stress are closely linked to depression and worsened academic performance. OER textbooks level the playing field and allow equal opportunity.”
Even though the passion project took Hedges a year and a half to complete, it’s been a rewarding experience and worth every minute.
“I feel that this experience has expanded my reach in the neuroscience education field,” Hedges said. “When I see the statistics on how many people are accessing my book daily, I know that this text is not only serving my students, but many people outside of MSU. This has helped me reach my personal goal of removing the additional costs associated with my course and creating a more inclusive and equitable classroom environment.”
