Hi Cathryn,

Great question! I think you could definitely take this approach with high school students. We really wanted to hear what the students have to say from their perspective, and so made sure to create a space where they can be very honest about the materials under review. We had lots of open discussions about their experiences in classes, what kinds of pedagogy they personally find helpful, and structured it using the UDL guidelines so they could identify in what ways their experience could be improved. I think you could take the same approach with high school students!

Here is the link to the UDL guidelines: https://udlguidelines.cast.org/ 

As far as how undergraduate authors can inform open-access resources, I think their perspectives and experiences with high school and seeing how resources are used set them up to have great insight on what would have been the most useful and effective for them. Combining their thoughts with current high school students who can help refine ways of accessing materials and the types of resources would be amazing!

Hi Mindy,

I absolutely think there is! We really focused on opening the floor for conversation and welcome the students’ thoughts and ideas. I think the same approach could be taken with K-12 grade levels. When the students know you value what they have to say and their experiences, it generates some really great conversations!

I’m not sure the reviewing process would have to be modified too much beyond scaling down the materials to make sure they’re relevant to each grade level. One really awesome outcome was that the students could take our conversations and identify not only potential roadblocks to their own learning in their individual classes, but they could also identify ways that would improve the learning process, usually in a way that would benefit not just themselves but the other students in the course as well.

Hi Denice,

Exactly! And because we’ve created this space where the students know they can talk freely about their opinions and what helps them, they also generate some incredible solutions that many of us would not have thought of on our own. If there was a way to allow students to give feedback on other textbooks and to give ideas of ways to improve, it would be amazing!

Hi Dr. Alkins,

We are actually working on some of this. There will be a print version of the textbook in addition to an online version so students who do not have access to reliable internet will still be able to utilize the materials. It is our land grant mission to incorporate rural communities, and we are attempting to reach these communities through the Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries (PASCAL) network and by working with a technical college.

As far as science standards, we are following the current curriculum for college at three different levels (technical college, undergraduate (4-year), and graduate). That being said, looking at pathways into college-level robotics from K-12 sounds like a great next step! This is a work in progress, and our team is working on developing different types of assessment.

Thank you! We will have more coming soon.

I laughed when I read your question because proposal and reality are definitely different in this case. Our intent was to be far more integrated during development, but we're currently siloed into discrete teams with a fairly linear review process. I'm hopeful this can change, as we're currently working out issues with the first textbook, but ideally, we'd be far more integrated, especially when substantial revisions are advised.

I think, again, ideally, the content authors would also be well-versed in UDL and learner-centered design; however, in our case, we have an instructional designer in addition to our undergrad reviewers who got quickly up-to-speed by using UDL and ADA as their lenses, using them almost like qualitative coding themes, if that makes any sense. We're still early in this process, but Leah and I get very excited about our discussions with the undergraduate student-researchers.

Our intention is to use the PASCAL network for distribution in our state, connecting the technical college system with colleges and universities. Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries Clemson University Press will provide the resources under an OER-related imprint. There will also be a version on Educate Workforce as well. More soon!

Thank you! The students have done a fantastic job. We should have more updates soon!

Without saying too much about individuals, certain students receive course credit through an undergraduate research experience while others are employed as work-study, and our expectations vary based on that status. The graduate authors were chosen by the Robotics faculty, who are guiding content development. Anecdotally, the undergrads seem more interested in the learner-centered design aspects rather than the robotics content. We're intending to submit an ASEE 2023 proposal this fall based on learner-centered collaborative instructional design with the undergrads as co-authors. Our goal is a transferable process model, with attention to the important contextual distinctions that are impacting our current implementation across institutions.