From Barriers to Breakthroughs: Leveraging Undergraduate Teams for Inclusive Open Courses

Presenter Information

Greg Mayer, Georgia Institute of Technology - Main CampusFollow
Stephanie Reikes, Georgia Institute of Technology - Main CampusFollow

Presentation Type

Presentation

Location

Teams.

Event Website

https://sites.gatech.edu/opencourseproject

Start Date

10-4-2025 3:00 PM

End Date

10-4-2025 3:50 PM

Description

OERs and open courses benefit college students by reducing financial barriers through free access to materials and enhancing learning flexibility. Moreover, engaging undergraduate assistants in the development of these resources supports their career readiness by providing them with hands-on experience in instructional design while deepening their understanding of OERs and course content. However, creating open courses presents challenges, including securing sustainable funding, maintaining high-quality standards, and ensuring ongoing updates.

This lightning talk highlights how a faculty team navigated these challenges through a multi-course curriculum development project aimed at creating open courses. Now in its second year, the project is supported by an institutional fellowship, an Affordable Learning Georgia grant, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Inclusive Excellence Grant. The Open Course project enhances student success on campus and beyond in core subjects such as college algebra, pre-calculus, multivariable calculus, and statistical methods for psychology majors.

Preliminary findings indicate A) Success in reaching a diverse range of students, including underrepresented populations, B) continuous refinement of the curriculum through implementation in college courses, and C) expanded use of open courses by learners for projects beyond the classroom.

Our presentation will cover project goals and timeline, training and support provided to undergraduate student teams in creating open courses using AI and other tools, methods for collecting data to evaluate progress toward project goals.

Strategies for addressing challenges related to personnel changes, data privacy, and timeline constraints.

By sharing our experiences with unexpected challenges, data collection methods, and student assistant training, we aim to provide valuable insights for attendees interested in OER development involving multiple faculty collaborations, open courses, and student assistants.

Author Bios

Stephanie Reikes has been a Lecturer in the School of Mathematics at the Georgia Institute of Technology for over seven years. She is the recipient of the Center for Teaching and Learning’s Undergraduate Educator Award in 2021, which recognizes the outstanding contributions that non-tenure track faculty make to the education of students. Her focus is on the pre-calculus course sequence, supporting students who have a higher probability of failing academically, and bringing active learning to the classroom.

Greg Mayer is an Academic Professional in the School of Mathematics at Georgia Tech. He teaches undergraduate level mathematics courses and provides administrative support for faculty and programs. Dr. Mayer supports distance education courses in the Distance Mathematics Program, teaches a series of linear algebra courses on EdX, and is involved in a range of curriculum development projects related to undergraduate level courses and open education.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.