More than Free Textbooks: Labor and Pedagogy in Implementing Open Resources in a Trigonometry Course

Abstract

Synopsis This paper reports the implementation of open educational resources (OER) in a university trigonometry class, with an emphasis on the pedagogical considerations and academic labor involved. To date these two matters have been underreported in the literature on OER. I provide an account of the work involved both in choosing an open textbook and in creating hundreds of accompanying homework exercises for an online learning platform. I also present the pedagogical lens that informed this implementation, discuss how it informed my adoption of an open textbook, and provide specific examples of how it guided the creation of these exercises. Based on my experiences I make some observations for those who might be considering OER in their own classes, and I present the results of a survey I gave my students on the use of OER in their class.