ESCANABA — Bay College was one of eight colleges selected by Achieving the Dream to participate in the next phase of its research on open educational resources, or OER. The goal of ATD’s Teaching and Learning with OER study is to understand whether and how faculty’s use of OER leads to the adoption of new pedagogical strategies in the classroom.

ATD has partnered with SRI Education to conduct the research, which will include interviews and focus groups with students, faculty and administrators, as well as observations of OER classrooms during the 2021 spring and summer academic terms.

Researchers will be looking for evidence of innovative teaching practices, such as open pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching practice, in classes using openly licensed course materials.

“Bay College is very proud of the work faculty and our online department personnel have accomplished creating a significant number of OER books which have reduced cost of attending college $1,457,000 in textbook costs over the last five years for Bay College students. We look forward to expanding our efforts,” Bay College President Dr. Laura Coleman said in a news release.

ATD will develop a set of tools and resources based on the study outcomes to help faculty effectively integrate new teaching practices with their openly licensed materials. ATD and SRI will release a final report in early 2022.

To learn more about Bay College’s participation in the study, contact Joseph R. Mold at 906-217-4246 or moldj@baycollege.edu.