Student-generated Open Educational Resources (OERs) to inspire the next generation of STEM students and teachers

Abstract

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are no-cost teaching tools increasingly used to support student learning at all grade levels. OERs are not equitably distributed across disciplines and few OERs exist for middle school age groups about vertebrate animal anatomy. To help fill the resource gap and explore impacts of cross-generational science teaching on students at predominately Hispanic institutions, we tasked university students with creating animal anatomy presentations for middle school audiences. Presentations were disseminated live over a virtual platform to middle school students and pre-recorded versions were posted on YouTube as OERs. University and middle school students completed voluntary pre- and post-presentation Likert-scale surveys to quantify learning experiences. By developing and sharing OERs, university students increased their animal anatomy knowledge, understanding of OERs’ purpose, beliefs in effectiveness of online educational materials, confidence in creating scientific presentations for non-peer audiences, and beliefs in their abilities to impact the next generation of learners. After watching the presentations and interacting with the university students, middle school students increased their beliefs that they learn effectively from other students, animal anatomy knowledge, and interests in studying science. The development and dissemination of animal anatomy OERs for middle school audiences fills a gap in available resources and helps inspire the next generation of science scholars.