2026 Colorado OER Conference

Many educators have searched for course materials only to find they don’t exist. The next question is often, could I write the textbook? The answer is yes and this session will show you how. This presentation shares practical strategies for starting and managing a large-scale OER textbook. Participants will explore common barriers, tips for planning and organizing content, and strategies to sustain momentum. Attendees will also consider potential collaborators and stakeholders who can support the process. Recognizing that no two textbooks are the same, the presenters will encourage participants to share their own insights and ideas to enrich the discussion. At the end of the presentation, everyone will leave with a personalized blueprint to guide their next OER textbook project.

How do we move beyond lecturing about motivation to actually fostering it? This session explores the journey of the Calvin Project, an initiative designed to transform educational psychology through the marriage of Project-Based Learning (PBL) and Open Educational Resources (OER).

We will trace the project’s evolution from a pilot experiment into a sustainable, student-directed experience. Attendees will see how shifting from traditional textbooks and lectures to OER and PBL empowered students to build their own understanding of motivation by engaging in an authentic problem space that requires translating abstract theories into actional strategies, while publishing their work in accessible, interactive formats. By analyzing the Calvin Project’s framework, we will illustrate how to build a PBL structure that provides intentional scaffolding while preserving student ownership and discovery As we share our experience with the Calvin Project, we’ll demonstrate how OER and PBL work hand in hand to meet the changing needs of our students.

Whether you are looking to refresh a single unit or overhaul a full course, this session provides a roadmap for creating learning experiences that draw students in and transform the way they see the world around them.

Many traditional science textbooks from major publishers are prohibitively expensive and contain more material than many instructors can cover. OERs lower the cost of student participation in science and allow for customization by other educators who want to use them in their own classroom. Botany is one such area of the life sciences with few OERs developed. We aimed to create a new OER (Biology of Plants Coloring Textbook) specific to botany that was customized to the unique block plan structure of Colorado College, with a curriculum covered in 3.5 weeks of concentrated study. This project offered a unique collaboration between a faculty author and student illustrator.  Colorado College promoted the creation of the OER with grants to the professor and the student illustrator, and provided professional networking opportunities. The OER is a hybrid of a condensed textbook, laboratory exercises including slide and living specimen observations and experiments, and interactive worksheets and coloring images featuring 30+ original botanical line drawings. We will discuss our collaborative process developing the project, discuss licensing choices, and showcase our work, focusing on the beautiful illustrations. Our published OER is being utilized by multiple instructors at Colorado College and many other instructors at different institutions have shown interest in it, especially those who teach college-level introductory botany in shorter timeframes like summer or January terms.

The rapid growth of Colorado’s aerospace industry has increased the demand for a skilled and diverse workforce, while access to introductory aerospace education remains uneven across K-12 and early-college pathways. This presentation describes a collaborative initiative that addresses this gap. The OER resource Principles of Aerospace Engineering is being developed through a collaboration among two local K-12 schools, Pikes Peak State College, and the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). The final product will be a modular, openly licensed textbook and activity suite designed for high school and early college learners.

The project is funded by a grant from the Colorado Department of Higher Education. It brings together faculty, instructional designers, and students to co-create a shared curricular resource aligned across K-12 and higher education. Rather than treating OER as a single course artifact, this initiative provides open content as a connective infrastructure that supports curriculum development, reduces duplication of effort, and strengthens transitions across K-12 audience and into post-secondary STEM programs. This session highlights strategies for cross-institutional collaboration, student involvement, and alignment with workforce-relevant learning outcomes. It also addresses practical considerations such as licensing sustainability, and faculty adaptation.

This interactive session will engage attendees through guided reflection and discussion focused on identifying transferable collaboration models and implementation strategies. Participants will leave with concrete ideas for leveraging OER to build resilient, innovative, and collaborative learning opportunities that expand access and opportunity across educational systems.