The Anatomy and Physiology textbook by OpenStax was adopted for first-year undergraduate courses with students. These 500+ students were enrolled in the following programs: nursing, health sciences, allied health sciences, kinesiology, medical laboratory sciences and health physics and radiation sciences.
Adopting an OER textbook is often only the start in shifting away from a publisher textbook. The previous publisher textbook by Elsevier cost $300 to purchase new. The importance of having a high-quality textbook is evidence by an informal survey where 85% of students accessed a textbook at least once during the term. Of these, 58% bought a new textbook while the other 42% purchased a second-hand copy, found a free copy or used a library copy. However, the OpenStax Anatomy and Physiology textbook came without the breadth of teaching and learning resources that normally accompany publisher textbooks for the course, e.g. summaries, animations, audio-glossary, case studies, interactives, instructor slides, and question banks. With this in mind, I sought to create some of these resources throughout the past 12 months.
Question banks were developed by, and immediately made available to, students enrolled in the course through an innovative discussion board-based biweekly assignment. These questions were then collated and grouped by an upper level Teaching Assistant (TA) assigned to the course. Students were divided into smaller groups of 30, and each group loaded into a separate discussion group on the learning management system. Each student was assigned a set of five to ten slides to generate five questions for each assignment. These slides formed the basis of instructor-recorded lectures which were organized into biweekly modules and followed the textbook chapter sequence. Students were given a specifications-based rubric; to allow rapid marking given that there were 500+ students submitting every 2 weeks. Students were also given an infographic-based instruction sheet to allow for ready reference. These assignments gave each student up to 150 unique questions for each module.
Over 150 interactive activities were created using H5P with the help of technical expertise of students in our OER development group. Interactive activities included drop and drag diagrams, fill in the blanks, multiple choice and flashcards. The last activity was based on the key terms used in each chapter of the textbook.
The design and development of these resources to complement the textbook was an exhilarating process done in the midst of the pandemic. I look forward to sharing them with the open community.
After participating in this session, attendees will be able to:
- Create a framework for collective creation of review questions
- Develop a specifications-based rubric for rapid volume marking
- Design an infographic-based set of instructions
- Develop H5P interactive resources
Our resource is available here: https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/apinteractives/ Ontario Tech University acknowledges the lands and people of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation. We are thankful to be welcomed on these lands in friendship. The lands we are situated on are covered under the Williams Treaties and the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation, including Algonquin, Ojibway, Odawa and Pottawatomi. These lands remain home to a number of Indigenous nations and people. We acknowledge this land out of respect for the Indigenous nations who have cared for Turtle Island, also called North America, from before the arrival of settler peoples until this day. Most importantly, we remember the history of these lands has been tainted by poor treatment and a lack of friendship with the First Nations who call them home. This history is something we are all affected by as we are all treaty people in Canada. We all have a shared history to reflect on, and each of us is affected by this history in different ways. Our past defines our present, but if we move forward as friends and allies, then it does not have to define our future.
