Psychology 311

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID:  Psychology 311
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open textbook and zero-cost materials are being utilizing in a psychology course for undergraduate students by Susan Sy at CSU Fullerton. The zero-cost library ebook provides an overview of the important concepts of educational psychology. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was to save students money. Most students access the resources via the course canvas page or permalinks from the library. 

Course Title and Number:  Psychology 311
Brief Description of course highlights:  Application of psychological research and theory to educational processes, including learning, motivation, individual differences, teaching methods and evaluation. This course is recommended for those interested in careers in the field of education.  

Student population: Mainly Psychology majors who are junior or senior status (some sophomore). Prerequisite is Psyc 101.
Learning or student outcomes: 

1. Evaluate key psychological theoretical explanations of child and adolescent development and human behavior related to learning.
2. Explain critical issues currently facing students, families and educators, and the implications of these issues for the processes involved in teaching and learning.
3. Create and maintain a knowledge, resource, and theoretical base that integrates developmentally and culturally appropriate practices in educational settings.
4. Analyze the relationship between psychological theoretical perspectives, cultural contexts, and the processes involved in teaching and learning.
5. Distinguish between personal opinion and findings supported by research & theory.
6. Apply appropriate educational psychology theories, concepts, and research findings to case studies and real-world situations.

Key challenges faced and how resolved: Finding the exact information that I wanted, which has always been available in the text I used to use. The benefit of the previous text I used was that it provided a lot of great detail and elaboration on concepts that was helpful for students when studying or doing paper assignments. Because I had difficulty finding similar depth of coverage in OER, I updated my lectures to focus more on complimenting the readings with that detail.
Syllabus and/or Sample assignment from the course or the adoption [optional]: I simply changed the syllabus to indicate that there is not a required textbook and that links to all required reading assignments are provided in the appropriate module on the Canvas course site.

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: 

Brief Description: Did not use a specific textbook, instead used a variety of online sources, although a lot of material was drawn from Educational Psychology
Please provide a link to the resource   https://edpsych.pressbooks.sunycreate.cloud/front-matter/title-page/
Authors:  Nicole Arduini-Van Hoose.
Student access:  Links posted on Canvas course site within each Module 

Supplemental resources:  Outdated videos from Worth Publishers; other resources I developed myself, including practice activities and quizzes, both in person and online.

Provide the cost savings from that of a traditional textbook.  Cost savings: 39.95 

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. To save students money

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? Searched online for specific course content – kept coming back to the same book for most content, but then I needed additional material to cover some content not covered well in this particular online text.

Sharing Best Practices: Sometimes you can find the info you are looking for just by googling the keywords for course content you want covered. Then browse through the results to find the source that best matches how you want the material covered. 

Describe any challenges you experienced, and lessons learned. The sheer amount of time it took to update a course that I am very familiar with is daunting. I did originally start trying to move to OER for Psyc 101, but that is a course I haven’t been teaching as long. I’ve been teaching Psyc 311 for 20 years, so I know exactly what I want to find and it still was a huge workload to make the shift. I’m finding it daunting to make the shift for 101 and have learned that I will likely need more than just a stipend (although the stipend was a huge help for working on converting 311!) – I will need the time, rather than the money, to make it work well.  

Instructor Name:  Susan Sy
California State University, Fullerton
Psychology professor teaching Intro to Psychology, Educational Psychology and Independent Research

Please provide a link to your university page.
https://psychology.fullerton.edu/faculty/facultyprofiles/s_sy.aspx

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests related to your discipline or teaching.  The influence of family and culture on children's educational transitions. My current work examines the influence of parental involvement and parental support on children’s academic outcomes in elementary school.