Emma Prendergast PHIL 1000: Intro to Philosophy OER Project

Description: 

The OER materials in the course included writings found in the public domain, curated and abridged by the instructor to suit the needs of the course. The OER materials also included supplementary “lecture notes” written by the instructor, which provided context, analysis, and discussion prompts for each of the primary texts. Traditional textbooks providing similar content often cost ~$50.

Curricular changes: 

Using OER in my course led me to focus the content on primary sources that are found in the public domain. This was easy to do in a philosophy course in which we are reading Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, etc. These primary texts are difficult to read and understand, but the students in my course recognized the importance of approaching these texts for ourselves, rather than simply reading a distilled summary of them in a textbook. To help students engage with the texts, I implemented Perusall in the course. Perusall is a social annotation and e-reader platform that helps students engage with course materials through social learning. Based on student reports, annotating the texts alongside peers in Perusall kept students engaged with the readings and sparked ideas for in-class discussion.

Teaching and learning impacts: 

Yes. The curricular changes I described above improved engagement with course texts. Implementation of Perusall was crucial to student success in the course, and it is a change to the course that I only began to consider while developing OER. I also produced OERs—supplementary lecture notes on the primary texts, including questions for discussion—which provided consistent in-class structure in my teaching.

OER Adoption Process: 

I was motivated to adopt OER for a few reasons. First, I value removing cost barriers and making learning accessible for everyone. Second, OER materials are easily customizable compared to textbooks. I find that traditional textbooks are usually either missing something important or bogged down with too much information. I love being able to tailor the materials to the specific needs of the course and deliver a focused learning experience for students.

Student feedback about using OER:  

“The organization of the texts, the lecture notes, the chronological order of the texts, the teaching was so amazing and worked very well and I got out of it what I put into it.”

“Direct reading of text instead of reading commentary on text.”

“The strengths of this course would have to be the lecture notes and the online resources. The lectures note were a game changer when attempting to understand these large pieces of work.”

Regarding our use of Perusall alongside the OERs, students wrote:

“It was super interesting having the persuall discussions to hear our other classmate's opinions and maybe sway our own. Also after a brief review of the chapter notes the remainder of class was spent in discussions.”

“Being able to use perusall and having in person discussion about the different philosophers made it easier to understand the ideas. The perusall site made it so that students can discuss their ideas with one another, having disagreements and being able to converse with the topic made it more impactful.”

Instructor Name: Emma Prendergast

I am an Assistant Professor of Philosophy in Utah Tech University’s History, Humanities, and Modern Languages Department. I received my PhD in Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My research and teaching interests include ethics, political theory, and philosophy of education.