This workshop introduces how UNC developed an OER Career Readiness Curriculum Toolkit collaboratively with our Center for Career Readiness, Center for the Enhancement of Teaching, and two Deans.This toolkit became a central focus for the newly created Career Readiness Faculty Fellows (CRFF) program, an initiative designed to equip faculty with tools and strategies to integrate National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) career competencies—such as communication, critical thinking, and teamwork—into their courses.At this workshop, the CRFF leadership team will outline toolkit creation, the faculty fellows program, and the initial outcomes of our research. The program fosters interdisciplinary collaboration, allowing faculty to share ideas, challenges, and best practices in embedding career readiness into curricula. As we have now completed the first cohort of participants, we will share how the program offers a replicable model for other institutions looking to strengthen career readiness.
What looks great on paper belies the calm duck paddling like mad against currents, rapids, and waterfalls. CNCC's rocky journey to pervasively adopting OER materials in general education. How our "students first" culture, top-down administrative buy-in, assessments, communication and incentives shaped our success. How we pulled through recalcitrant faculty, business operations woes, and crushing work load almost killing it. We hope our story will demonstrate common pitfalls to OER adoption/utilization and how college culture, faculty and their supportive superiors are the keys to success.
Traditional teaching methods often fall into the repetitive cycle of lecture, discussion, assessment, repeat, leaving both students and instructors disengaged and possibly even bored. Looking toward the future of education, what can we do differently to entice students to stay interested and motivated in their courses? This session explores how story-driven learning and gamification can transform OER-based courses into interactive, engaging experiences for both learners and educators.Using a sci-fi inspired, mission-driven framework, this session will demonstrate how immersive narratives, challenge-based learning, and game mechanics enhance student motivation and participation. By applying these principles, educators can make learning more dynamic, fostering creativity, collaboration, and deep engagement.Attendees will learn how to think outside the box and reimagine their OER course as something more creative and dynamic by integrating gamification elements into their OER courses, shifting from passive learning to active exploration, problem-solving, and role-play scenarios.
This talk will examine the financial impact of OER, and other low/no cost materials, on textbook affordability programs, such as equitable access.Using data collected from the first 2 years of CU Boulder’s equitable access program, we will dig into the actual number of students using these materials, the cost savings realized by those students, and the financial impact on the program as a whole.We will also discuss the relationship on CU Boulders’s campus between the bookstore, library, faculty and departments to support and advocate for the adoption and use of more OER, low and no cost materials on campus.Finally, we will review future book store initiatives to introduce more OER, low and no cost materials to CU Boulder’s equitable access textbook program and the potential impact of those additions on students and the program as a whole.
