Welcome

This is Prof. Cailean Cooney’s teaching portfolio site, written in October 2022 for her application to Associate Professor.

i. Biography

Title: Open Educational Resources (OER) Librarian
Department: Library
College: New York City College of Technology, CUNY

Cailean Cooney is an Assistant Professor and Open Educational Resources Librarian at City Tech. She started at the college as a substitute lecturer in 2013 and began her tenure-track position in 2016.

Cailean initiated the Open Educational Resources Fellowship program in academic year 2014-15, and since 2016 has led the college’s participation in the CUNY-wide initiative to increase awareness and use of OER and open educational practices. During this time City Tech has consistently been awarded competitive funds to support faculty in developing OER and zero-cost resources.

She has published research about student and faculty perspectives on OER, impacts of OER on student outcomes, and presented widely on a local, regional, and international level, about open education initiatives, faculty professional development, and usability and instructional design. Her work intersects with academic libraries, higher education, and open education.

Cailean values openness – specifically contributing to a culture of sharing that foregrounds intention and transparency – and believes these practices are central to engaging critically and meaningfully in teaching and learning, and knowledge exchange at large.

ii. Teaching Responsibilities

Supporting the Library’s Mission

The Ursula C. Schwerin Library supports the City Tech community in research and academic pursuits. This is accomplished by acquiring and maintaining print materials such as books, periodicals, monographs and digital resources, including eBooks and online electronic databases. The Library’s resources are selected by faculty library subject-specialists who also provide research assistance and instruction in disciplines and programs of study at the college. Additionally, the library offers reference and research services, and library and information literacy instruction. Each library faculty member holds both faculty rank –for example, Assistant Professor – as well as a functional title.

As the library subject liaison for Biological Sciences, Career and Technology Teacher Education, Psychology, and Health Sciences, I have taught guest lectures in Research Methods for the Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS 2000) and held one-shot library resource and information literacy classes for Chemistry students, one of my former subject areas. I also conduct one-to-one instruction with students through e-reference and the reference desk. I develop and maintain research guides in each of the disciplines I am the liaison for and created a research guide in the trans-disciplinary field of Disability Studies.

As the OER Librarian at City Tech

My position includes a number of responsibilities that support teaching and learning at the college although I do not teach a credit bearing course.

In my role as OER Librarian, my teaching responsibilities include:

1. Designing and teaching OER faculty professional development programs; the most prominent is referred to as the OER Fellowship program
2. Designing and (co)teaching workshops offered to all faculty, including OER Tune-Up workshops and Intro to OER workshops
3. Training and heading up leadership with part-time library faculty and staff; guiding individual and collaborative work taken up by members of the OER Team in support of program goals
4. Organizing a robust presence for OER at the college, including resources for faculty to learning about, find, and develop OER via the OER at City Tech website
5. Conducting program outreach, including promoting professional development opportunities with the college community and sharing open and zero-cost library-licensed digital resources with faculty across departments
   1. This includes selecting resources for the New and Noteworthy collection – monthly posts that foreground openly licensed resources across disciplines at City Tech

An overview of OER professional development and support opportunities is available on the Get Involved page of the OER at City Tech site.

iii. Statement of Teaching Philosophy

I believe that organizing around project-based work in a community of practice (COP) is an extremely effective way to learn. In my teaching, I strive to foster community with these traits:

• A strong COP is motivated by a common goal or organizing tenet, staying connected as a group while also working independently toward tangible outcomes.
• When thriving, all COP members engage with a commitment to equity and reciprocity and embrace their contributions as both teachers and learners.

Maintaining this environment requires mutual respect among all members, and welcomes different perspectives and approaches to be explored with curiosity and criticality. 

I believe that to be an effective teacher, one must constantly be working toward greater access and inclusion among learners, and make the curriculum a vehicle for these principles. Being transparent is essential to modelling intentionality and reflection which engenders metacognition and independent learning. Finally, moving aside so that peers can connect and exchange with each other opens more possibilities for learning and discovery.

In the following section I share how I implement these approaches.

iv. Description of Teaching Methodologies

Access and inclusion

I work to prioritize access and inclusion in my teaching. I do this by developing learning materials that are perceivable and usable to everyone, regardless of ability, and by making a supportive environment for all.

• Accessibility reading and discussion assignment:
  Fellows were asked to read a short blog post: “Crips Visiting Detroit,” from Creating Collective Access: Practicing Crip Solidarity and Love, June 2, 2010. After reading, Fellows responded to the following discussion question on the cohort site: How does considering accessibility beyond complying with the ADA inform your approach to teaching? Below is a screenshot of this prompt.

• With co-teachers Jo Thompson and Joshua Peach, we adapted the community agreement from AORTA for our Fellowship cohorts to share our goals for a respectful and caring community of engagement.
• I also work to convey concepts through multiple modes of representation to help learning. With the help of a former Faculty Commons intern, I created Creative Commons license ‘flashcards’ so that faculty could get acclimated to the licenses in a more tangible way. With these cards, faculty could consider what license they would choose for work they author themselves, better understand user permissions, and start to grasp the continuum of openness by testing themselves by matching permissions with the correct license (there are 6 different licenses).

Transparency and Metacognition

Transparency is about making the intention and purpose of something known. In practicality, this is accomplished by spending adequate time designing and delivering instructional materials that support learning objectives and put learners front of mind. Putting this into practice is important to modeling metacognition and an ethic of care among learners.

• Below is a screenshot of homework assigned to the 2020 cohort. Each assigned reading includes context for why it has been selected and how it relates to the program. The readings also help faculty prepare for the upcoming synchronous cohort session. Framing questions are included to activate readers. The text version of the screenshot is on the 2020 cohort site.

I am mindful to keep homework expectations reasonable in terms of time to complete and make sure tasks support practical skill building to complement their OER work. I also make a point of giving estimated reading and viewing times for assigned readings and videos, and suggest devoting a minimum amount of time for tasks that are more open-ended. This context helps when considering time allocation and advanced preparation and in some cases can decrease a general sense of overwhelm.

Scaffolding

Scaffolding is one concrete approach to stimulate metacognition and can help structure and uncover the learning process.

• OER Site Checklist
  When this document is shared with faculty in advance of the final requirement (in this case a public OpenLab site to house zero-cost OER), along with the OER Course Template, faculty have something to reference and help stay on track throughout the site creation process up to the final submission deadline.
• OER Project plan template (Word download)
  This template helps faculty begin to think about their scope of work through a project management lens and build guide posts to structure their process. As the reviewer of the draft project plans, this document is a great point of reference between myself and the faculty member. It helps us both get to conceptualize the workflow involved and skills and support needed.
• Model learning object exercise (Word download)
  ‘Purpose: Your model learning object will help you develop project scope and timeline, and assist with scaffolding your workflow and skills and knowledge acquisition needed to bring the project to fruition.’

Breaking down concepts

Approaching new concepts by breaking them down with activities makes things approachable.

• Identifying Licensing Information worksheet (Word download)
  This is a worksheet to analyze resources to identify licensing information and determine if something is permissible to assign and share publicly, when selecting OER to teach with.

The above photo is a snapshot of a similar activity that asks faculty to come to the session having already selected an open or public resource that they’d like to use in their teaching. At this point they have already read about Creative Commons licenses and copyright, but are not necessarily certain about the license of the resource they selected. Faculty are asked spend a few minutes to identify the resource’s license and then place the post-it (with the resource name) in the column they think it best matches. This can stimulate a lot of questions and discussion, and often illuminates that there are some grey areas and more to know about copyright they first expect!

Peer learning and exchange

Peer exchange and learning is so important in cohorts and project based work. It also brings more possibilities for information exchange, knowledge building, support, and motivation.

• OER ‘Critique’ Activity
  This activity is intended to stimulate productive reflection and critique.
  • Part 1 – Homework Instructions:
    • Browse the list of OER provided and select two that interest you. We will use your selections for an activity in the first meeting. Drop the URLs of the OERs you’ve selected into the following google doc [link redacted].
  • Part 2 – In Session Activity:
    • Pair of into groups of 2-3.
    • Think about why you selected these OER and what struck you about them.
    • Share you picks with your partner and describe some of your main observations.
    • Generate a list of attributes that will help us al identify successful components of an OER.
    • Discuss!

• Small group discussion promotes exchange and deeper engagement with topics among OER Fellows during cohort meetings. Participants were put in small breakout rooms to discuss and jot down notes and share ideas across the larger group using this padlet.
  • Prompt 1: What are some invisible challenges that students might face that affect their performance in the classroom?
  • Prompt 2: Considering a more expansive definition of accessibility: what are some ways that we can make our class space/courses accessible?
  • Prompt 3: What advice would you give to a new instructor in light of your own teaching experiences this past year (COVID era)? Below is a screenshot of the padlet activity.

v. Course Syllabi

Below is a selection of curriculum I have designed and taught:

1. Academic year 2021-22 OER Fellowship Cohort Curriculum
   The OER Fellowship program solicits applicants across the college to select and create OER that support teaching and learning. My program design work includes writing the call for proposals and creating the faculty application form. Each year, I revise documentation to make improvements and customize to iterative program changes. A selection of past calls from earlier programs include the June ’21 intensive and the Spring ’21 program.
   • The cohort syllabus includes an outline of synchronous meetings and asynchronous assignments.
   • Documentation to scaffold faculty’s project-based work:
     • Example Model Learning Object (Word download)
     • Project Plan Draft Template (Word download)
   • An earlier iteration of the OER Fellowship curriculum is available via the Fall 2020 cohort website, a public OpenLab project.
     
2. Quick Guide to OER for Teaching and Learning
   This guide is meant for faculty and written to a general audience with background info on what you need to know about OER, including a definition and how copyright and licensing relates to OER. The guide also includes helpful resources on searching for and using OER.
   
3. Teach with Free & Open Educational Resources
   This is an online asynchronous module designed as one component of the Online Learning Seminar taught by former Director of Instructional Technology, Karen Lundstrem. The OER Module ran from 2017-2020 before the online teaching certification transitioned to a central training facilitated by CUNY SPS. Download the archived version of the site that ran from 2017-2020 and has since been revised for new programming.
   
4. Introduction to Open Educational Resources
   This self-paced learning module was developed as an initial training and companion to the Environmental scan project that faculty have engaged in to determine to what extent OER and other open access, public domain, and library digital resources are available in their discipline. This has been an opportunity for faculty in disciplines for which OER may be less numerous, to learn about zero-cost materials and get resources that can compliment instruction and consider options for future projects.
   
5. I co-taught the second iteration of the model course initiative in Summer 2021, with colleagues on the OpenLab management team.
   
6. I created a draft modified curriculum for the third iteration of the model course initiative, which I adapted from a summer intensive to a semester-long program. I spearheaded this work when I learned that members of the OpenLab team were looking to expand the timeline of the program beyond the limited summer duration. The proposed spring semester sequence was informed by my earlier work of iterating on the OER Fellowship to be more responsive to the nature of individual project-based work. This work informed the iteration led by Profs. Reitz and Rosen in Spring-Summer ’22.

vi. Student Learning & Assignments

Since I do not teach credit bearing courses, and I primarily conduct professional development with faculty, this section includes anonymous feedback submitted by faculty through a post-program survey and an example of the feedback I share with faculty on their OER projects.

Anonymous program survey feedback from OER Fellows:

• The most helpful thing I learned in this program was…
  • “(a) The benefits of OER for students and instructors. (b) Finding OER materials. (c) How to easily create an OER site in less than 4 hours.”
  • “How to post my course as an OER while understanding the copy right issues and other restrictions.”
  • “Creative commons licensing types”
  • “the licenses and how other faculty members develop their OER”
  • “How to create attributes using Open Attribution Builder; also insight into WordPress (OpenLab)”
  • “Through this OER fellowship, I learned how important the sprit of OER is. OER is not just a cost-free textbook. It is more about the open platform that support developing an academic collaboration with others.”
  • “The accessibility issues being brought into focus was helpful.  Hearing others ideas was good. “

In addition to providing feedback through emails, other written documentation, and through phone calls, and individual and small group zoom meetings, I review and provide feedback to all cohort participants on their projects. Projects have ranged from ~17-35 per academic year.

Included is an example of my feedback to a colleague on their OER course site.

vii. Teaching Effectiveness

My teaching responsibilities are unique so I have several ways to demonstrate teaching effectiveness. This includes voluntary additional comments from OER Fellows in their post-program surveys, exhibits of positive mentoring and collaboration, evidence of other institutions adopting learning materials I have developed, and the tremendous cost savings impact of OER and zero-textbook resources on students.

Anonymous program survey feedback from OER Fellows:

• Additional comments (optional) shared by former Fellows:
  • “I just enjoyed working on my class site and other OER-s and discussing with my colleagues and asking questions for things that I wasn’t that sure.”
  • “Great opportunity to work with City Tech colleagues and to utilize tools made available to us.”
  • “Thank you very much.”
  • “This course was good and successful to get our feet into the field of OERs”
  • “thank you”
  • “Thank you for the OER team’s hard work. This was a great experience!”
  • “Well-organized program led by a knowledgeable, friendly team. A model for other grant-funded faculty development initiatives. Thank you!”
  • “Thank you for your guidance and expertise”
  • “The conversations were very good and every session was well-moderated. Also workshop leaders were incredibly accommodating with their time. Thank you!”

Mentoring

I had an opportunity to conduct a specialized workshop for two students working on perceptions of OER among students with their faculty mentor, Prof. Voza. This was a great experience for me because working with students is not something I have the opportunity to do often. Their project culminated in being awarded the Dr. Jean Hillstrom Interdisciplinary Research Award, and they were kind enough to thank me in their poster acknowledgments.

Instructional materials I have developed; adopted by other institutions.

The following includes screenshots with attributions from previous and exhisting resources I have developed: first the OER guide via Libguides, and now the Quick Guide to OER for Teaching and Learning.

Student Textbook Cost Savings

Due to the success of the OER programming at City Tech, by the end of academic year 2021-22, 147 courses across the college have received funding to develop zero-cost OER, many of which have converted fully to zero-cost OER; freeing students from any textbook costs associated with taking the course.

As a funding requirement, I report OER developed each year to the Office of Library Services at CUNY Central. Since the initiative began, City Tech has steadily increased its number of ZTC courses.

Below shares data on cost savings from the Office of Academic Affairs. Calculations are made from students enrolled in ZTC sections multiplied by the average textbook cost of $100. The savings are tremendous.

Textbook Cost Savings

• 2017-18: $1,096,000
• 2018-19: $ 1,565,500
• 2019-20: $1,570,700
• 2020-21: $2,310,300
• 2021-22: $2,470,400

viii. Teaching Improvement Activities

In January of 2022 I completed the online teaching essentials workshop with a dual goal of improving my teaching and gaining better insight into the curriculum so I am more familiar with the training afforded to CUNY faculty around teaching and learning with technology.

I am also working to deepen my knowledge of accessibility and disability studies which will inform my program design and teaching, as well as my work as a subject liaison for various disciplines at the college. I am also participating in anti-oppression efforts and programming facilitated by the Library’s anti-oppression working group.

ix. Future Teaching Goals

I am planning to design professional development opportunities directly informed by faculty survey results from Spring 2021. Specifically, data showed that part-time faculty across the college have less awareness of OER and subsequently utilize OER less in their teaching. In the next academic year, I am hoping to offer specific programming to part-time faculty to increase awareness.

I also have plans to pilot an OER/OpenLab working group with Bree Zuckerman, loosely structured around OER and delivering instructional materials. The purpose of the working group is to get dedicated faculty input and testing of new and existing functionalities and increase opportunities for faculty to engage in a community of practice around OpenLab and contributing to continuous improvement of the platform for teaching and learning.

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