LTCC's Dr. Larry Green honored in Washington, DC for lowering student costs

Lake Tahoe Community College (LTCC) math and statistics instructor Dr. Larry Green was recently honored for his efforts to both adopt and promote the use digital books and other free classroom material.

The 20 Million Minds Foundation recognized Dr. Green for his efforts in finding and promoting creative ways to combat the high cost of college textbooks. Dr. Green utilizes OpenStax textbooks and other Open Educational Resources (OER) in the classroom.

The digital textbooks not only keep costs down for students but they allow the instruction to add their own materials and educational videos to the lessons.

Dr. Green has found that students are overwhelmingly positive about using OER materials. Students appreciate the fact that there’s no cost to access the books, and although the class content is challenging, students in the class have enjoyed a very high success rate since Dr. Green started using OpenStax.

“I’m really enthusiastic about open textbooks, and I wish more faculty would give OER serious consideration,” says Dr. Green. “Cost is a significant issue for many college students, particularly at community colleges, and I hope that one day, class material costs will no longer be a reason that students drop a class.”

The 20 Million Minds Foundation honored Dr. Green as an open textbook early adopter and faculty enthusiast at the Open Education 2014 Conference in Washington, D.C. last week.