Affiliation:
1. Georgia Gwinnett College, USA
Abstract
Open education resources (OER) have been impacting higher education across the world, providing access to affordable learning materials that represent a powerful alternative to commercial textbooks. This study discusses a two-year-long textbook transformation effort affecting first- and second-year Spanish at Georgia Gwinnett College. The goal was to replace the commercial textbook with OER that were free, international, and interdisciplinary in focus, and meaningful to a diverse student population. During 2017 and 2018, 336 elementary and intermediate students of Spanish were affected by this project. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected. The results indicated that the textbook transformation project was successful, and the students welcomed the no-cost model. Retention and completion rates were higher than the rates prior to this research, and dropout/withdrawal/fail rates decreased. More research is needed on the impact of OER to teach and engage the whole student and how it enhances second language learning.
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