COMM 1304: Introduction to Communication at the University of Houston Downtown utilizes two exams during the semester: a midterm and a final. Each exam covers portions of the OER textbook selected for this course. There are 50 questions on the exams, structured in  multiple choice and true/false format. This review serves the students as a guide for studying as they read the OER and review for the exam.

In this learning module, we will:1. Define nonverbal communication2. Discuss the principles of nonverbal communication3. Define and provide examples of the types of nonverbal communication

This is a screen shot of our "Start Here" page in our LMS (BB Learn) for COMM 1304: Introduction to Communication Studies at the University of Houston Downtown.

Computer Science courses (COSC) have become a popular area of study from K-12 to higher education levels (i.e., community colleges and four-year institutions). For the past years, different educational approaches have been proposed to disseminate concepts in these areas (traditionally through books and online platforms such as wikis, websites, forums). Although there are several resources available to assist a student in learning tricks or "how-to" for specific items, some of them lack curricular guidance to lead to a constructivist learning approach.

Some of the other available resources rely on a strong mathematical background, which many potential computer science students might not have, discouraging students from pursuing a computer science or programming field, particularly from a K-12 environment and community colleges.

This project comprises two courses: Programming Fundamentals I, a.k.a., CS 1 (THECB: COSC 1436) and Programming Fundamentals II, a.k.a., CS 2 (THECB: COSC 1437). Additionally, we present modules on cybersecurity and data analytics to these two courses, two emerging areas in computing-related to these courses that are highly applicable in today's industry needs.

Although the COSC courses do not appear in the 2017-2019 THECB Most Transfer List, many institutions, including high schools and postsecondary schools, have adopted COSC 1436 and 1437, their core highly demanded courses. Furthermore, different independent school districts have a strong partnership with community colleges and four-year institutions, increasing the number of COSC 1436 and COSC 1437 sections across Texas. Therefore, we anticipate creating an OER that might have a significant impact in the next years.

Topics in the lecture notes are aligned with section titles in Calculus: Early Transcendentals, 8th edition, by James Stewart (Cengage Learning). With the exception of a few application problems, all materials in these lecture notes are original. These notes are self-contained and may be used as a stand-alone, free, open-source text. These materials were funded by the THECB OER Development and Implementation Grant, 2021.

These quizzes are aligned with the topics in the Calculus I Lecture Notes. With the exception of a few of the application problems, all materials are original. The quiz problems are attached in a zip file to be used in the WeBWork open-source online homework/assessment system. (Also, a pdf version of the quizzes is attached for quick reference.) These problems may be used either in quizzes or homework assignments. They were funded by the THECB OER Development and Implementation Grant, 2021.

Textbook

The book for this course is Macroeconomics and uses a book from OpenStax which was created by Rice University.

Videos

Images for videos come from the following sources with voice over from Professor Richard Gosselin at Houston Community College who is solely responsible for their content. There are 179 videos for the macroeconomics course with an average run time of about five minutes each. They were produced using three sources - desktop screen capturing via Screenflow which is a product of Telestream, as well as One Button Studio and the Learning Glass for live in-person mini-lectures filmed in a studio. Nearly all the video have been closed-captioned for the hearing impaired using professionals rather than automation. There are also downloadable transcripts embedded for each video and a download feature for users. Houston Community College footed the expense of the closed-captioning service. I would like to thank the college administration as well as Ruben Duran, Senior Media Developer at the college for assisting with this.

OpenStax Macroeconomics, Second Edition

Principles of Economics is adapted from a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license

(CC BY-NC-SA) in 2011 by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. This adapted edition is produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing through the eLearning Support Initiative. This adaptation has reformatted the original text and replaced some images and figures to make the resulting whole more shareable. This adaptation has not significantly altered or updated the original 2011 text. This work is made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Test Bank

The original test bank provided by Open Stax provided 1158 questions, 955 were multiple choice and 203 were short answer questions. Under this grant there were no additional short answer questions added however, there are now 1418 questions in the new test bank which is the result of adding 260 questions of the following variety - multiple choice, fill in the blank, numerical questions, multiple drop-down questions, multiple-response questions, matching and formula questions which present each student with different values and parameters. Images in the test bank, unless otherwise noted are licensed under the Creative Commons and most are the product of unknown authors.

Review PowerPoint Slides

These were provided by Intellus Learning Open Courses

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (Links to an external site.) License. The material for these slides and the image come directly from Macroeconomics OpenStax, Second edition.

Discussion Questions

These were authored by Richard Gosselin at Houston Community College and are licensed under the Creative Commons. There are over 70 discussion questions available.

Flash Card Powered by Quizlet

These were authored by Richard Gosselin with a couple of exceptions. They are based on the terms in Macroeconomics, Second edition. They are also licensed under the Creative Commons and are freely distributable. There are 21 such quizzes, one for each chapter.

Excel Exercises and Videos

26 Excel assignments were created including practice assignments and videos to assist students with basic features of Excel which help them create a file, save data, sort data, create tables, line graphs, bar graphs and pie chart and much more.

Textbook

The book for this course is Microeconomics OpenStax which was created by Rice University.

Videos

Images for videos come from the following sources with voice over from Professor Richard Gosselin at Houston Community College who is solely responsible for their content. There are 161 videos for the macroeconomics course with an average run time of about five minutes each. They were produced using three sources - desktop screen capturing via Screenflow which is a product of Telestream, as well as One Button Studio and the Learning Glass for live in-person mini-lectures filmed in a studio. Nearly all the video have been closed-captioned for the hearing impaired using professionals rather than automation. There are also downloaded transcripts embedded for each video and a download feature for users. Houston Community College footed the expense of the closed-captioning service. I would like to thank the college administration as well as Ruben Duran, Senior Media Developer at the college for assisting with this.

OpenStax Macroeconomics, Second Edition

Principles of Economics is adapted from a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license
(CC BY-NC-SA) in 2011 by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. This adapted edition is produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing through the eLearning Support Initiative. This adaptation has reformatted the original text and replaced some images and figures to make the resulting whole more shareable. This adaptation has not significantly altered or updated the original 2011 text. This work is made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Test Bank

The original test bank provided by Open Stax provided 1333 questions, 1136 were multiple choice and 197 were short answer questions. Under this grant there were no additional short answer questions added however, there are now 1615 questions in the new test bank which is the result of adding 282 questions of the following variety - multiple choice, fill in the blank, numerical questions, multiple drop-down questions, multiple-response questions, matching and formula questions which present each student with different values and parameters. Images in the test bank, unless otherwise noted are licensed under the Creative Commons and most are the product of unknown authors.

Review PowerPoint Slides

These were provided by Intellus Learning Open Courses
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. License. The material for these slides and the image come directly from Microeconomics OpenStax, Second edition.

Discussion Questions

These were authored by Richard Gosselin at Houston Community College and are licensed under the Creative Commons. There are over 70 discussion questions available.

Flash Card Powered by Quizlet

These were authored by Richard Gosselin with a couple of exceptions. They are based on the terms in Macroeconomics, Second edition. They are also licensed under the Creative Commons and are freely distributable. There are 20 such quizzes, one for each chapter.

Excel Exercises and Videos

26 Excel assignments were created including practice assignments and videos to assist students with basic features of Excel which help them create a file, save data, sort data, create tables, line graphs, bar graphs, and pie chart and much more.

This course was designed to provide supplemental material to accompany "Introduction to Philosophy: Ethics," edited by George Matthews (2019). This textbook is available for free online and has also been uploaded to the OERTX Repository. Links to the relevant chapters have been provided at the start of each module. Please feel free to use as much of this supplemental material as you would like and to edit it as you see fit.

Within the Instructor Resources, we have included PowerPoints and study guides over each chapter.

In each module, we have created Pages covering the main topics from the chapter, along with a summary of the chapter. Each Page consists of a few slides from the relevant PowerPoint. These slides are embedded as JPEGS, and alt-text is provided for the visually impaired. The slides were embedded in this way to make the content from the PowerPoints more manageable for students and so that the slides would be more accessible on mobile devices.

Along with these Pages, we have also provided podcasts and videos in each module and in the Additional Resources that emphasize connections to the empirical sciences, such as moral psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology.

Each module contains a quiz. These quizzes draw randomly from pools of questions covering the chapter and the additional podcasts and videos. These quizzes were intended to be completed before class discussion, and they have been set to allow unlimited attempts until the due date.

Finally, each module also contains a dilemma for class discussion and a suggested active learning activity.

For additional assessment, we have provided a set of scaffolded writing assignments with accompanying rubrics, designed to help students learn how to write a philosophy paper. We have also included a model for a service-learning project.

If you have any questions about this material, please feel free to reach out to us. The PowerPoints, Pages, and Quizzes for each chapter were written by Dr. Jeremy Byrd (jeremy.byrd@tccd.edu), with the exception of those in the module over Chapter 7, which were written by Dr. Jeffrey Herr (jeffrey.herr@tccd.edu). Dr. Herr also wrote the dilemmas and the active learning activities for each module. The scaffolded writing assignments and rubrics were designed by Dr. Byrd, while Dr. Herr put together the service-learning project.

This is a Principles of Macroeconomics course utilizing exclusively Open Educational Resources and designed in Canvas. This course is mapped to the Learning Outcomes for ECON 2301 as established under the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Academic Course Guide Manual. This course is based on Openstax Principles of Macroeconomics 2e textbook and incorporates key components from EDUC 1301: Learning Frameworks, designed to enhance the student’s experience as well as to improve overall student learning.
The course was developed by a faculty team from Collin College as part of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board OER Course Development and Implementation Grant Program.

By Richard Milich and Walter Roberts, University of Kentucky. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a psychiatric disorder that is most often diagnosed in school-aged children. Many children with ADHD find it difficult to focus on tasks and follow instructions, and these characteristics can lead to problems in school and at home. How children with ADHD are diagnosed and treated is a topic of controversy, and many people, including scientists and nonscientists alike, hold strong beliefs about what ADHD is and how people with the disorder should be treated. This module will familiarize the reader with the scientific literature on ADHD. First, we will review how ADHD is diagnosed in children, with a focus on how mental health professionals distinguish between ADHD and normal behavior problems in childhood. Second, we will describe what is known about the causes of ADHD. Third, we will describe the treatments that are used to help children with ADHD and their families. The module will conclude with a brief discussion of how we expect that the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD will change over the coming decades.

Chapter activities created for OpenStax Psychology 2e. These activities were created for an online course and could be used in any introductory psychology course.

By Jennifer Lansford, Duke University.  Adolescence is a period that begins with puberty and ends with the transition to adulthood (approximately ages 10–20). Physical changes associated with puberty are triggered by hormones. Cognitive changes include improvements in complex and abstract thought, as well as development that happens at different rates in distinct parts of the brain and increases adolescents’ propensity for risky behavior because increases in sensation-seeking and reward motivation precede increases in cognitive control. Adolescents’ relationships with parents go through a period of redefinition in which adolescents become more autonomous, and aspects of parenting, such as distal monitoring and psychological control, become more salient. Peer relationships are important sources of support and companionship during adolescence yet can also promote problem behaviors. Same-sex peer groups evolve into mixed-sex peer groups, and adolescents’ romantic relationships tend to emerge from these groups. Identity formation occurs as adolescents explore and commit to different roles and ideological positions. 

By Eddie Harmon-Jones and Cindy Harmon-Jones, University of New South Wales. This module provides a brief overview of the neuroscience of emotion. It integrates findings from human and animal research to describe the brain networks and associated neurotransmitters involved in basic affective systems.

By Brad J. Bushman, The Ohio State University. This module discusses the causes and consequences of human aggression and violence. Both internal and external causes are considered. Effective and ineffective techniques for reducing aggression are also discussed. 

By Tara Queen and Jacqui Smith, University of Michigan.  Traditionally, research on aging described only the lives of people over age 65 and the very old. Contemporary theories and research recognizes that biogenetic and psychological processes of aging are complex and lifelong. Functioning in each period of life is influenced by what happened earlier and, in turn, affects subsequent change. We all age in specific social and historical contexts. Together, these multiple influences on aging make it difficult to define when middle-age or old age begins. This module describes central concepts and research about adult development and aging. We consider contemporary questions about cognitive aging and changes in personality, self-related beliefs, social relationships, and subjective well-being.

By Robert Biswas-Diener, Portland State University. The science of social psychology investigates the ways other people affect our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It is an exciting field of study because it is so familiar and relevant to our day-to-day lives. Social psychologists study a wide range of topics that can roughly be grouped into 5 categories: attraction, attitudes, peace & conflict, social influence, and social cognition.

By R. Chris Fraley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.The purpose of this module is to provide a brief review of attachment theory—a theory designed to explain the significance of the close, emotional bonds that children develop with their caregivers and the implications of those bonds for understanding personality development. The module discusses the origins of the theory, research on individual differences in attachment security in infancy and childhood, and the role of attachment in adult relationships.