Research Guides: Open Education Practices: Open Pedagogy

Enhancing Pedagogy via Open Educational Practices

Redesigning one's pedagogical approach in a given course is not a lightly undertaken task. But BEFORE choosing OER materials to fit in your course, it is worth considering how your course and learning outcomes will be structured differently and then SECONDLY identifying open resources to fit your goals. Designing your syllabus around a particular textbook or resource is not necessary when using OER - in fact, that flexibility and control is one of the biggest benefits of OER adoption.

Interview with Rajiv Jhangiani, March 30, 2016

Equity & Inclusion

By its nature, Open Pedagogy allows faculty to design courses to be more equitable and inclusive. One of the central tenets of instructional inclusion is to consider the context of the learners in designing course materials. Open pedagogy allows greater freedom for faculty to curate materials with their own students' context in mind.

These tools can be used to help faculty frame a course with equity and inclusion in mind:

Screening for Biased Content in Instructional Materials (Version 1.2)
This evaluation tool provides a strategy for assessing instructional materials for biased content.
Assessing Visual Materials for Diversity & Inclusivity
This resource is a modification of the Washington Models for the Evaluation of Bias Content in Instructional Materials (2009). This resource attempts to both update the content with more contemporary vocabulary and also to narrow the scope to evaluating still images as they are found online.
Online Equity Rubric
The Peralta Equity Rubric is a research-based course (re)design evaluation instrument to help teachers make online course experiences more equitable for all students. The rubric’s criteria include:
1) addressing students’ access to technology and different types of support (both academic and non-academic)
2) increasing the visibility of the instructor’s commitment to inclusion
3) addressing common forms of bias (e.g., implicit bias, image and representation bias, interaction bias)
4) helping students make connections (e.g., between course topics and their lives; with the other students)
5) following universal design for learning principles.

Tools for Remixing

EXAMPLE Resource Tracking Outline
Google Spreadsheet template for re-mixing open content into a course design
OER Outline Worksheet
Worksheet to help guide you in outlining a new OER or curating existing OER into a course

Helpful Links

Open Pedagogy: The OER Starter Kit
Brief introduction to the concept of Open Pedagogy
From OER to Open Pedagogy: Harnessing the Power of Open
In this chapter, authors Robin DeRosa and Scott Robison draw on a variety of examples to illustrate the empowering potential of open pedagogy, an approach in which students are not just consumers of content but active and visible participants in the construction of knowledge. The chapter concludes with a reflection on some of the challenges and lessons learned from engaging students in public scholarship.
Open Pedagogy Assignments
A rich compilation of Open Pedagogy assignment examples with learning outcomes. By Quill West.
Project CORA: Community of Online Research Assignments
Crowd-sourced list of Open Research Assignments. Particularly good for assignments that cover info lit topics such as evaluation, ethics, etc.
Open Pedagogy Webinar Series (SUNY)
An in-depth series of webinars exploring Open Pedagogy

Learn More

Books

Best Practices in Designing Courses with Open Educational Resources by Olena Zhadko; Susan Ko
ISBN: 9780367140694
Publication Date: 2019-12-20
Best Practices in Designing Courses with Open Educational Resources is a practical guide that assists faculty and institutions looking to adopt and implement OER and to foster meaningful, effective learning experiences through the course design process. Chapters loaded with tips, case examples, and guidance from practitioners advise readers through each step necessary for sustainable OER initiatives, from preliminary planning and course redesign through teaching, learning, and faculty development. An authors' website expands the book with resources, templates, and examples of implementation models, including faculty development workshop OER materials that can be adopted by readers.
Open Pedagogy Approaches by Alexis Clifton (Editor); Kimberly Davies Hoffman (Editor)
ISBN: 9781942341659
Publication Date: 2020-07-09
Our book aims to shed light on multiple definitions of "open" and how they are applied in a variety of learning experiences. Chapters provide case studies of library-teaching faculty collaborations that explore the intersecting roles and desired outcomes that each partner contributes toward student learning in an open environment.

Articles

Openness and Praxis: Exploring the Use of Open Educational Practices in Higher Education
By Catherine Cronin. As compared with OER, there has been little empirical research on individual educators’ use of OEP for teaching in higher education. This research study addresses that gap, exploring the digital and pedagogical strategies of a diverse group of university educators, focusing on whether, why, and how they use OEP for teaching.