The CORE 101 Pedagogy Project can be found here!There is oftentimes a mismatch between the level of knowledge required to understand even some of the most basic textbook selections for general education science courses. To that end, students in my general education science course for the past 4 semesters have been writing, editing, and curating OER websites using the Google Sites platform. These websites serve as the “textbook” for my sections of the general education science course I teach.
Instead of focusing solely on content to be memorized, the websites explore the intersection of complex science topics and society. Students are encouraged to explore ways in which their field of study also connects with the topics at hand - criminal justice majors have written about the ethics of DNA fingerprinting, political science majors have written about the politics surrounding climate change. Students have also participated in workshops to ensure the third-party materials they use are openly-licensed and/or make a fair use argument for their inclusion.
One of the goals this year is to disseminate the project so that others can reuse. While there is consideration to shift it to a platform that allows for easier revision and remixing, I wanted to share the usefulness of Google Sites as a platform for open pedagogy projects that can easily be reused by others and is user-friendly, especially for students that have institutional access to G-Suite for Education.
Learning Outcomes: Sharing a student-created OER for general education science educators.
