‘Open Access to Philosophy’ – Philosophy 1000 Open Access Common Textbook Project
Dr. Katharina Stevens and Dr. Michael Stingl
In the brief summary below Dr. Stingl describes the OER project he and his colleague Katharina Stevens completed in November 2019.
We got a teaching grant from the teaching centre to hire three of our MA students, Jason Schulchten, Michaela Thompson and Nicole Lokstadt to search out open source texts we could use in our Phil1000 courses. They could be posted to Moodle for the students to access, and they could be projected in class as we discussed key points.
Our phil1000 classes are capped at 50 to promote critical reading, discussion and writing skills, skills we think are directly related to one another.
While our MA students where gathering the basic texts, different faculty members were contributing to a Workbook the students could purchase for a nominal cost at the bookstore. In addition to the electronic texts, we thought it important for the students to have a physical workbook and to take physical notes in class and as they worked back and forth from the readings to their papers.
The Workbook sections divide philosophy up into its main areas, introduce background to the electronic texts, situating them with their broader philosophical contexts, and as well, provide study and discussion questions.
The money earned from Workbook sales goes into a fund to invite speakers to campus to address issues in our upper level courses.
