Hello @july23-cohort,
I look forward to meeting you all today and discussing Rebus’ collaborative approach to publishing and how a larger community around a resource can not only make it more robust but also help to maintain it down the road. I’m excited to hear about your teams’ projects!
See you soon,
Amy 
I’m an Associate Professor at Fitchburg State University, where I helped launch a bachelor’s degree in Digital Media Innovation and a master’s degree in Social Media. For my textbook project, I’m editing an existing OER project related to the Introduction to Communication and Media Studies course that I teach and adding sections and case studies on both logic and rhetoric.
Hello again, @july23-cohort !
It was wonderful to meet so many of you, and see all teams in our cohort represented at our first session! A link to our chat is forthcoming. Here is a link to the Slides.
The main focus of today’s session was to get to know one another, understand how our sessions will be structured, and learn about Rebus’ tools and approaches.
We also spent a bit of time discussing Rebus’ collaborative approach to publishing, and how a larger community around a resource can not only make it stronger, but also help maintain it down the line. Our approach hinges on thinking about communications, accessibility, formatting, and more at each stage to really harness the global potential of OER. And these stages can and most likely will be flexible, and thus play out in different ways for each team — that’s what the model is built to do!
We also discussed the tools we use for the Textbook Success Program like Curriculum Hub in Google, for instance, we also mentioned the Rebus Community Forum, where this recap is posted and where we will conveniently streamline ALL our cohort communication. All materials will be available to you throughout the program. We encourage you to share your questions here! Please note that you can use the tag @july23-cohort for conversations that include all cohort members. In addition, you can also write direct messages to individuals, not only in your cohort, but the entire forum space. Refer to the video tutorials in your handout for a more in-depth overview of the forum and its features.
THIS WEEK : If you haven’t yet, I kindly ask you to complete this week’s activities as outlined in your session handout 1:
Agree to the Memorandum of Understanding for our cohort (there’s a thread for that).
Write a brief introduction as a reply to this post including your role on the project and the dream goal you have for it [can be combined with your ‘progress’ post due before next week’s session—see below]. While we were able to meet some folks on the call, Rebus is excited to hear from others who were not able to make it.
FOR NEXT WEEK : To let each other know of the progress you are making as you are working through the tasks of the week, I kindly request that you share your team updates with me and the cohort by replying to this post with the following information [this can be part of your intro post or a separate one]. Please make sure to post a short message prior to our next session, so I can read what you write and prepare my responses:
What activities have you managed to complete?
What challenges have you faced and what solutions have you found to address those?
Leave a few thoughts around the items that excite you, you would like to know more about, or you have questions about with regards to the upcoming Session 2: Project Scoping [Read the initial 5 slides]
If you have any questions or need any clarification on anything, don’t hesitate to reach out!
Looking forward to seeing you all next week!
Amy
Hi Everyone! I enjoyed meeting you and hearing a bit about your projects this week. I am working an edited volume of culturally responsive case studies in early intervention. It’s a collaboration between me, the community, and SSU education and Spanish students. I am very much looking forward to scoping the project and coming to a more certain place about how I want the book structured.
I am new to Fitchburg State and excited to be collaborating with two colleagues, Diego and Elise, on a creative reader/sourcebook for our first-year writing courses. I’ve taught writing courses in a lot of different educational contexts and appreciate how this has “trained” me to be flexible, open, and creative in my teaching. Our goal as a team is to create something that diverges from prescriptive and standardizing writing pedagogies, with a focus on the politics of language. A dream would be to incorporate jazz as a conceptual framework as well as content theme, though this isn’t concrete yet. As for progress, we have an outline of the book’s sections that reflect goals for our resource and learning outcomes for the courses it can be used in. I have a broad sense of existing OER resources and how ours will differ. This is a place I’d like to start for scoping, and would like some help making sure I’m looking in all the right places.
Hello All,
I am working on an adapted OER for Introductory Biology, specifically the “evolution and ecology” themed half of a two-semester introductory biology series for our Biology Department majors at Salem State University. I have been teaching the course for several years and teaching it exclusively with OER since 2020.
The overarching goal for my “remix” project is to improve representation, diversity, and inclusivity in the course resources by modifying an existing OER Biology text. In short, this will involve modifying existing chapter content as needed, adding research profiles and/or career highlights that center the work of biologists from all backgrounds, and adding sections that connect biological concepts to culturally/societally relevant issues.
I am also hoping to integrate openly sourced resources currently presented to student in my course “a la carte” via Canvas.
A dream goal would be for this resource to be useful for others teaching this course or teaching similar courses both within and outside of my institution.
I am still in the planning stages for my project, and have not yet started to edit or create content. I am happy to have the support of this cohort while I navigate the planning and creative processes!
Hey all, I’m an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at NECC. My textbook project is called “Culturally Responsive Computing” (CRC). It’s an inclusive resource for introductory tech courses, aimed at promoting equity and diversity. It addresses issues like stereotype threat and the digital divide, using diverse case studies to highlight the ethical and social implications of computing. I’m excited to share more about this project with you all.
My dream goal for the “Culturally Responsive Computing” textbook would be to seamlessly integrate AI tools like ChatGPT into the educational experience. I envision a dynamic learning environment where the textbook content is not static, but interactive and adaptive to individual learning styles and needs, enhancing student engagement and understanding.
As of right now, I’m still in the process of outlining relevant material from existing sources that could be useful for my textbook.
Hi, I am an Associate Professor of Exercise and Sport Science at Fitchburg State University. I am really excited to develop a OER text for Health and fitness. I hope the text is something that can be used as a “one stop” for material, activities, and reflection. The way I approach Health and Fitness is really to have the students learn about themselves (their personal strengths and areas that need improvement), so they can maintain/ improve aspects of their health.
This past week I had a slight issue accessing REBUS but thanks to Apurva I am all set! But that is why this post is coming in just an hour before our meeting.
Overall I am really excited about doing this but still feeling a little confused about the whole process and what that will look like.
-Jess Alsup