This session summarizes a course development process that relied upon a variety of open educational resources in order to design and develop an introductory course for paralegal students. Course design and development is presented from an equity lens, with a goal of ensuring each student has ongoing access (including beyond any particular course session and/or learning management system) to consumable, relevant, and timely materials that support long-term learning.
Many of the popular texts used in courses of this nature were all over 100 dollars, often more. Further, most had poor student reviews. When I couldn’t find an existing open education resource textbook for my course, I decided to take a mashup approach to course development. In this session, I will demonstrate how instructors and course designers can rely upon a variety of open educational resources in order to customize and tailor a course experience for individual students.
This session promotes thinking about course development and OER as a buffet, where each student can access a plate of fresh, nourishing, and sustainable resources that are curated specifically for their unique needs and goals. Content will include example collections, example resources, and shareable exercises (all of which can be adapted for personal use).
While the session will focus on an Introduction to Paralegal Studies course, the course content is easily transferable to a wide range of Introduction to Business, Business Law, American Government, Legal Studies, Criminal Justice, and related courses.
After participating in this session, attendees will be able to:
- Identify open educational resource (OER) collections for use in course design
- Assess OER collections for use in course design
- Explain how to apply a buffet-style OER curation process
- Evaluate a buffet-style approach to course development
