Pilot Testing Open Pedagogy

"This summer, as has become usual practice for me, I adopted open textbooks for my Introductory Psychology and Social Psychology sections (produced by NOBA and the BC Open Textbook Project, respectively); however, my desire to enjoy a semester entirely free from traditional textbooks was challenged by the absence of a high quality open textbook for Cognitive Psychology. Although I began by negotiating the price of the traditional textbook down by $75 (“just for you” I was told—because I am such a nice guy, I assume), I eventually opted to to use the semester as a pedagogical cleanse and assigned my Cognitive Psychology students a selection of openly available readings and video clips (many from the terrific GoCognitive.net project). In total, my 140 students this summer (across four sections) collectively saved about $23,500. Of course this is great news, but the greater challenge I had set myself for the semester was to shift away from traditional, disposable assignments (that my students see little purpose in and that I don’t take special delight in marking) towards what different people have started to refer to as valuable/renewable/legacy assignments. Inspired, as always, by David Wiley’s posts on the subject (see here and here), I was excited at the idea of harnessing the energy, potential, and especially the creativity of my first- and second-year psychology students ..."