Upper Peninsula Teaching & Learning Conference - 2026

Institutions of Higher Education in the Upper Peninsula have been working to promote and support Open Educational Resources (OER) on their campuses for many years. OER are course materials available at little or often no cost and can be used for teaching, learning, or research (EDUCAUSE, 2010). OER, along with other Open Educational Practices, foster a collaborative, learner-driven environment, which support inclusion and belonging in multiple ways. 


Since 2015, Bay College has built an equity-centered OER initiative featuring OER degree pathways, over 40 OER-based courses, and more than $3 million in textbook savings. Michigan Technological University’s Van Pelt and Opie Library’s OER initiative builds an inclusive campus culture by supporting instructors through consultations, workshops, and publishing tools. Since 2017, Bay Mills Community College (BMCC) has been using OER textbooks in eight of their core and general education classes. In 2024, BMCC was one of 15 institutions from across the country to take part in an OER study funded by Hewlett Foundation and conducted by AAC&U. At Northern Michigan University (NMU), the OER Working Group has concentrated on supporting interested faculty through faculty learning communities and professional development workshops. 


Based on our experiences on our individual campuses,  the panelists will discuss the ways in which OER can be used to support inclusion and belonging.  We will introduce the audience to the basics of OER. We will also discuss the ways in which we engaged with faculty to consider using OER with their classes. Finally, we will discuss how faculty and librarians can utilize technologies already available to them to facilitate the creation of accessible, affordable course materials as a means of supporting student success and belonging, including the use of generative AI and OER publishing tools. 

During the 2025-2026, the Center for Teaching and Learning sponsored a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) that explores and develops methods for integrating assignments and other activities where students create digital content and deliverables. Adobe Express will be the primary tool set utilized for these activities. As the initial cohort of six faculty, we are representing 5 different disciplines across campus and conducting this project in 6 different courses. Led by the CTL Director and an Art & Design faculty member, we were tasked to meet regularly in order to participate in relevant professional development, design and incorporate digital deliverables in our courses, and develop a research project.  
Throughout this process, each of the faculty have developed and implemented multimodal assignments of
varying lengths and point values while introducing potentially new digital content creators, e.g. Adobe
Express or Figma, as tools to compose their projects. As a group, the faculty have created a multifaceted
survey to address effectiveness of the use of these tools to achieve student learning outcomes. The faculty will share the survey questions. 


Students will be asked to complete a survey after the semester. Each student participant will answer a set of core questions and then each class has a set of discipline-relevant questions. At the time of this conference, the PIs will have the ability to report on the findings for the survey and have projects to share from students who have agreed to share their work for this study. Presenters will also introduce free digital creation tools for participants to consider as alternatives to Adobe Express. 

This presentation explores practical ways to integrate Indigenous culture into science and mathematics instruction to improve understanding and create more inclusive classrooms. Participants will examine a culturally-based visualization tool that models complex biological and anatomical structures and helps students grasp difficult scientific ideas. The session will also demonstrate math lessons that connect basic skills to Indigenous knowledge and community practices. In addition, the presentation will share a classroom project that combines cultural learning with core mathematics objectives. Finally, participants will review online course design tools that support cultural representation and student engagement. Together, these examples show how culturally responsive teaching can strengthen comprehension, motivation, and equity in both in-person and online STEM courses.