CU Boulder Student Government and the University Libraries are thrilled to announce this year’s recipients of the annual Open Educator Award. This year, we are honoring four educators for their tremendous and exemplary efforts to improve CU Boulder students’ learning experiences through open educational practices. Read more about these awardees’ inspiring experiences, insights and resources.
We’d like to acknowledge all of the educator and student submissions for the award. The quality of submissions indicates that educators across campus are making impressive strides for open education at CU Boulder.
The University Libraries OER Leads are available for educational and advocacy consultations to the University community. Don’t hesitate to request a learning opportunity or consultation by contacting oerleads@colorado.edu or visiting our guides: Open Educational Resources, Open Pedagogy, and Creative Commons Licenses.
Nicole Jobin
Nicole Jobin, a senior instructor in the College of Arts and Sciences, has engaged in numerous open educator groups and initiatives on the CU Boulder campus, including OpenCU OER review workshops, ASSETT’s Special Interest Groups on BuffsCreate and ASSETT’s Innovation Incubator—the Collective to Advance Multimodal Participatory Publishing (CAMPP).
Jobin says she values the opportunity for students to openly license and publish their intellectual work, and to engage in the co-creation of knowledge.
“I love the idea of non-disposable assignments and co-creating knowledge with my students for the use of future studies,” said Jobin. She was also driven to adopt OER when examining the high cost of course materials and realized, “there were some easy ways I could start to make a difference.”
A passionate historian, Jobin finds stories of the past are enriched when students engage with a variety of content and realia, including artifacts, the written record, landscapes, documentaries, maps and photographs. This approach led to in-class collaborations with the University Libraries’ Rare and Distinctive Collections department virtually during the pandemic, which resulted in student-created digital exhibits.
Shifting from a traditional research assignment, Jobin tasks students to “build a narrative of the past,” allowing them to connect with not just the story of the past, but also how it comes to be told.
“It’s been a joy to watch their reactions to this more tangible form of history and to try and spark their interest in learning,” she said.
Jobin is currently remixing an OER textbook for her HIST 1011 class, “Europe to 1600,” as well as developing a historical atlas with students. She finds inspiration from colleagues by attending OER conferences and encourages fellow teachers to “use the resources around you” including librarians and colleagues. Her excitement about OER is evident in this encouragement to colleagues.
“Go on a treasure hunt to see what is already out there and let yourself think big about possibilities, but start small," she said. "If you can create one new thing to use in a class—even if it is only for one short assignment—you will have a building block for the next idea or project.”
Beth Osnes
Beth Osnes, an associate professor of theatre at CU Boulder and Environmental Studies faculty associate, was described by her nominator as, “an excellent example of an open educator.”
Indeed, Osnes has found creative and inspiring ways to use OER in the classroom and has invited students to co-create openly licensed content. She created a collaborative web space where students curated facilitation techniques for an openly licensed Community Performance Toolbox. Students enrolled in her “Performance and Community Engagement” class share strategies for in-person and virtual class settings.
Since its inception, the toolbox has attracted attention from educators at CU Boulder and beyond. The techniques offer methods for increasing interaction in learning settings and include an activity focused on dialogue and social justice, authored by Beth Osnes and Nii Armah Sowah. This activity and many others have provided meaningful models for educators facing racial tensions and pandemic constraints in 2020.
Osnes is also working collaboratively with students and the organization Project Drawdown to openly publish top climate solutions for fifth graders in both English and Spanish. This project also includes lesson plans and activities that are “ready for easy implementation” and adaptation.
Both projects actualize her commitment to give “students real-world experience through their classroom work that can be used towards open access to knowledge, information, and resources.” In turn, her students respond with “gratitude and enthusiasm.” Osnes cultivates open and care-based classroom spaces where “students feel brave to be the author of their own ideas and actors in the creation of an equitable, survivable, and thrive-able future for all life.”
She expends the same values in her work to democratize learning and advance the sharing of knowledge in the classroom and through campus collectives, including the ASSETT Innovation Incubator 2019-2022.
Gregory D. Young
Gregory D. Young, senior instructor in the Political Science and International Affairs department, was nominated for the Open Educator Award by eight students who praised his innovative approach to crafting an open educational resource in collaboration with students.
In Fall 2020, Young guided students enrolled in PSCI 3062 “Revolutions & Political Violence” in the authorship of chapters on revolutionary theory, which will subsequently be published with an open license for use by future students in the course. The experience was appreciated by students for the sense of contribution and authentic creation that it offered.
“It makes me feel like I've accomplished something that's more than just me trying to muddle by in a class, and I think it's for a great cause,” student Abigail Nguyen said in her nomination.
As one student described, they were able to become “small experts” on the course content, which significantly impacted students’ motivation and investment. In addition to this open pedagogical approach, Young made all other course readings and materials available with open licenses or library-licensed content meaning that students were not burdened by course material costs.
Young’s interest in OER arose early in his teaching career at the University of Northern Colorado, where he observed that students, “could not afford [all of the texts] or would not be able to buy them until later in the semester. In my experience with hundreds of students, they learn better when they have access to all course materials from day one,” said Young.
The student nominators emphasized how this approach offers cost benefits, as well as an opportunity to hear from diverse perspectives. Nominator Jared Espinoza noted that “The diversity of sources over a traditional textbook not only saved us money but also provided diverse perspective[s].”
Evident in all of the nominations was a heart-felt appreciation for Young’s approach to teaching and gratitude for his care for students. “Interacting with my students is the reason that I do this,” said Young.
Tammy Fredrickson
Tammy Fredrickson, associate clinical professor in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and director of Audiology Clinical Education, was nominated for her efforts to design and make available 50-60 simulations of clinical practice for students of audiology, filling a gap in available learning resources.
Fredrickson’s timely and expert design of interactive materials meant that students were able to “hone their clinical skills, sharpen their critical thinking and decision making and apply evidence-based practices in the context of a clinical scenario,” as reported by one nominator.
In 2020, opportunities for clinical training were halted due to the pandemic, which may have delayed students’ graduation and learning without Fredrickson’s resources.
As a teacher in a clinical program, Fredrickson says she is motivated by “watching students make connections between what they learn in the classroom and how those things learnt in the classroom reveal themselves in a clinical setting and in patients.”
“I'm always looking for ways to improve my clinical teaching and to better support our students,” Fredrickson said.
Using several web applications and resources, Fredrickson is openly licensing these materials to make them widely available to audiology students across the country. She has already been recognized by the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CAPCSD). As faculty colleague Kathryn H. Arehart noted, “What has emerged is going to be a profound educational resource that will be shared with other university programs and will be integrated into both our undergraduate and graduate courses.”
Students have also been quick to praise Fredrickson’s work. Her feedback from students shows, “they have appreciated the opportunity the simulations provide for us to slow down and discuss issues and questions that we simply don't have the time to immediately address in a clinical environment. This can help to further strengthen the connection between what students learn in the classroom and how those things reveal themselves in the clinical setting with patients.”
Student and nominator Heather Hurlbut confirmed that “These cases have been great for being able to review case-based concepts at our own pace.”
While these resources are filling an important gap and Fredrickson’s work is being applauded, she remarked that there is still plenty of opportunity to collaborate on expanding access to simulations and improve student learning.
“In the field of audiology, we need more of these types of resources,” said Fredrickson. “Working together to create these types of resources would not only improve the quality of the resources, [but] also improve learning opportunities for students.”