Middle Childhood Development

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID: Child Development 209
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open textbook is being utilized in a child development course for undergraduate or graduate students by Meenal Rana, Ph.D. at Humboldt State University. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was to save students money and to find a textbook that approached the topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion better than the previous one. Most students access the open textbook in Canvas.

Course Title and Number: CD 209 Middle Childhood Development
Brief Description of course highlights:  CD 209. Middle Childhood Development doesn’t have any prerequisites. It counts as a Lower Division Area E GE requirement. Course catalog.

Student population:
Learning or student outcomes:  Since the class counts as an Area E GE requirement, the class is likely a mix of newer Childhood Development majors as well as people from outside majors.  

Describe the principles and patterns of growth and development.
Critically evaluate literature that relates to the child development discipline (theories, research, historical viewpoints, current viewpoints, contemporary trends, assumptions, and/or practices).
Identify and evaluate the variety of factors that influence children’s development.

Key challenges faced and how resolved: One concern Rana had while initially adopting the current OER material she is using for her class is that it’s not as rigorous as her previous textbook. She says that she’d ideally like to find a textbook with a little more rigor—it may suffice for her introductory classes but not as much for her 300-level classes. Still, she does make up for the quality by assigning articles to read meant to complement and flesh out the material.

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: Childhood 101

Student access: The whole course has been uploaded as a .pdf on Canvas but split it up into sections that are easier to navigate for students.

Supplemental resources: The textbook they found, Childhood 101, didn’t cover as much material and didn’t have as much research backing it, but Rana was able to supplement the textbook with peer-reviewed research articles and activities to compensate.

Cost Savings:   Each student saves about $200, and her classes are usually full of 35-40 students per class section. In the Fall, she teaches two sections, which means she has around 60 students.

License: Not specified

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. Her department puts a lot of emphasis on equity, diversity, and inclusion and noticed that the textbook they were using wasn’t up to those standards. Otherwise, the biggest draw was saving money for students.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? Rana asked one of our librarians who then directed her to a childhood development OER textbook.

Sharing Best Practices: She recommends upcoming adopters of OER should read the book first to make sure that it meets their minimum standards and that they may have to find other material and/or make their own additional assignments.

Share any curricular or pedagogical changes that you made: The big selling points for Rana are the fact that there’s no more guilt about only assigning part of a text. She finds that there’s a lot more freedom with OER because of that. With OER, you can assign as much or as little of a text as you want without worrying about how it will impact your students’ financial situations. With less dense material to read, it also means that she can add more varied and interesting content to the class like podcasts, videos, and articles.

Describe any challenges you experienced, and lessons learned. Rana notes that her current OER textbook doesn’t have enough material to prompt activities or homework assignments. It is merely the reading and nothing more, which meant that she had to create her own activities and homework assignments that weren’t out of the textbook. She admits that that’s a minor complaint, however, because she has a lot of activities and homework assignments in the class already.

Meenal Rana 
Humboldt State University

The coursework emphasizes an epigenetic view of development; trauma informed work with children will be the integral underpinning of this course. Over the course, students will also examine and reflect on their understanding and development of themselves as learners, developing individuals and ultimately professionals working with children and families.