By Maritez Apigo – Open Educational Resources (OER) Coordinator, Distance Education Coordinator, and English Professor at Contra Costa College
Now in its fourth year, the Open for Antiracism (OFAR) program has been impactful in helping faculty to make their curriculum and pedagogy antiracist across California Community Colleges. Findings on faculty member’s confidence to discuss antiracist topics and introduce antiracist practices reveal that only 28% felt “confident” or “very confident” before participating in OFAR, which increased to 88.5% feeling “confident” or “very confident” after the year-long experience.
College teams of faculty in OFAR create individual Antiracism Action Plans in the fall, and then in the spring, move to the implementation phase with the support of an Advisory Coach. To gain a sampling of the incredible work that past faculty participants have accomplished, check out this YouTube Playlist of OFAR Action Plans & Project Examples.
I learned more about the participant perspective from David Chávez Méndez, Ph.D. (he/him), History and Ethnic Studies Instructor at Compton College, who completed OFAR last year. David was truly invested in decolonizing his syllabus and applying antiracist pedagogy and praxis to his learning materials. He created a liquid syllabus. David’s commitment led him to become an antiracist, OER, and ZTC advocate at his college. In the following interview with him, I was intrigued by the transformation OFAR had on all of his classes, the collaboration among his team and coach, as well as the broader institutional impact.
Why did you choose to apply for OFAR?
As a new faculty member in Ethnic Studies here at Compton College, I was attracted to the opportunity to enhance my anti-racist pedagogy through being part of OFAR with a cohort of colleagues. In Ethnic Studies, our focus is on anti-racism, decolonization, and praxis for liberation, so it made a lot of sense to join the program as I was unfamiliar with OER and different modalities of anti-racist pedagogy.
Additionally, I was excited to get to know more of my colleagues across disciplines and campuses as well.
What did you learn from the OFAR courses, your coach, and your colleagues on your college team?
From the OFAR course, I learned that not all OER is anti-racist as well as anti-racism goes beyond your course material but also how you teach. I figured out how to change formative and summative assessments, create a liquid syllabus, and overall, how OER materials can be curated to support anti-racist pedagogy.
From my colleagues I learned the challenges that other disciplines face that are outside of the humanities and social sciences when implementing anti-racist approaches. I also found out that some of my colleagues had already created OER texts and had been doing so for years which was great to see.
Finally, from our coach I received great feedback on how to improve my approach to OER adoption in my courses and how to collaborate with colleagues to enhance OER and anti-racist pedagogy across campus.
How did your action plan evolve over the year?
At first, I was unsure of what to do beyond replace our standard textbook with OER. However, through the process of the OFAR class and coaching, I ended up creating a new introduction module to introduce anti-racism as a core objective of my class, created an accessible liquid syllabus, and built/remixed OER materials for my class.
How has your curriculum and pedagogy changed as a result of participating in OFAR?
I have used my action plan to begin transforming all my courses to incorporate anti-racism as a core objective, created liquid syllabi, and researched OER materials for all the courses I teach.
How has OFAR inspired your future teaching?
OFAR has allowed me to see how anti-racist pedagogy is essential in supporting students by having accessible and affirming curriculum, course design, and approaches in the classroom.
It has made me rethink and redesign my courses and continue to center my objectives around anti-racist frameworks.
Finally, it has inspired me to serve on our institutional OER committee to start building our campus capacity to support anti-racist OER adoption.
What does being an antiracist educator mean to you?
Being an anti-racist educator for me means first recognizing the racist roots of education and the Eurocentric roots of pedagogy in the U.S. Then it means to act on this reality. That action must be taken not only in developing an anti-racist curriculum but also in the methods of teaching to transform the classroom environment. From how the syllabus is designed to how the assignments are created.
I also think to be an anti-racist educator is to realize that we can not do this alone and must be an advocate for changing the dynamics of our classrooms and campuses because our students and communities can not wait. Ultimately I think it means to be accountable to the communities of students we serve but also to those who came before us and sacrificed their freedom to end racism. That we really don’t have a choice to sit on the sidelines in this current moment. And not to feel anxiety but instead to feel urgency and know that we can build something new.
I feel the sense of urgency that David described. For more from him, view David’s liquid syllabus for his “Introduction to Ethnic Studies” class and the webinar recording below of his OFAR Antiracism Action Plan presentation, including how he created a liquid syllabus and decolonized it. David’s confidence in adapting his teaching practices is just one example of the powerful work that faculty are undertaking as OFAR begins its fourth year.
More on OFAR by Maritez:
OFAR Year Three Kicks Off
The Implementation of OFAR Antiracism Action Plans.
About Maritez
For two and a half decades, Maritez Apigo has had the honor of teaching English and ESL in community colleges, high schools, and middle schools in the Bay Area, California, and in Hawaii. She has been teaching online since earning her M.A. in English and TESOL from SFSU in 2012, and she holds an Online Network of Educators (@ONE) Certificate in Online Teaching and Design and an @ONE Advanced Certificate in Online Teaching Principles. Currently, she is the Distance Education Coordinator, the Open Educational Resources (OER) Coordinator, and an online and hybrid English Professor at Contra Costa College.
As a leader in online education, OER, and ZTC (Zero Textbook Cost), she trains and mentors faculty at the college, district, and state levels. She is an @ONE Online Course Facilitator of four professional development courses. On the leadership team of Open for Antiracism (OFAR), she serves as a Course Facilitator and the Lead Advisory Coach. She also serves as a California Community Colleges ZTC Program Curriculum Developer, Training Coordinator, and Course Facilitator. Her passions for social justice, equity, innovation, and student success are illuminated in her work.
When she’s not teaching, you might discover her behind the turntables DJing, in the dance studio working on her dance technique, or at a soccer field cheering on her two young children.
Twitter: @maritezapigo
Open for Antiracism acknowledges the generous support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in helping to make this program possible.
Featured Image Credit: Microphone Photo by Joao Cruz on Unsplash