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Are you seeking to make your teaching practices and instructional materials more antiracist? Do you wish your course materials incorporated and supported the voices and experiences of all your students? Are you concerned about the cost of commercial course materials that don’t support equitable student learning?
We’re seeking teams of classroom faculty from California Community Colleges (CCC) who wish to make their teaching and instructional materials antiracist to join a statewide Open for Antiracism (OFAR) Faculty Cohort running from September 2022 through June 2023.
If selected, your team will complete a 6-week, facilitated online course from October to November 2022, introducing you to these major topics in the context of developing an antiracist action plan: What Is Antiracism? What Are Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Pedagogy? How Can They Support Antiracist Pedagogy?
Each team member will create an individual action plan for the spring term to integrate OER and open pedagogy as a way to make teaching and learning explicitly antiracist. Deliverables might include a revised history class that now includes a module on Juneteenth or a revised biology text in which students replace images of all-white bodies with images that better reflect their communities.
Also, you will attend monthly webinars on antiracism and open pedagogy, and receive dedicated support on searching for OER and using open licenses. Individually, you will help document the impact of your participation by:
- Completing surveys
- Participating in interviews
- Uploading an openly licensed syllabus and sample assignment
- Reporting out to your campus community
- Submitting a final reflection
- Providing course outcomes data
Your campus may request a consultation or a dedicated workshop on topics related to the program.
Applications are due Wednesday, September 7, 5pm Pacific Time
Who Will Participate?
Participation in the OFAR program is limited to 40 faculty (full-time or adjunct). You will earn a $500 stipend after completing the OFAR course this fall, which includes developing an antiracist action plan for implementing in a class you are teaching for spring 2023.
During spring 2023, you will receive ongoing support while implementing your antiracist action plan in a class you are teaching. Upon completion of the program, you will receive a stipend of $3,000. This will be a total of $3,500.
Why Now?
Protests for racial justice sparked organizations to release public statements decrying systemic racism and calling to change hiring practices, disaggregate student data, and add equity to strategic plans. However laudable these public statements might be, they often call for actions that are far removed from teaching practices and instructional materials.
This is the ideal time to educate and empower faculty to move beyond statements on institutional websites and enact concrete approaches in their classrooms, by harnessing key affordances of OER and open pedagogy to introduce antiracist content and practices into classrooms.
Our working definition of antiracism refers to actions that identify, interrogate, and alter the values, structures, and behaviors that perpetuate systemic racism. We approach this work with humility and a desire to learn together.
Team Applications & Institutional Support
For this third year of OFAR, we ask that applications be submitted by teams of four to six faculty from the same college so that you will have a local support network. When selecting your team, we encourage you to include adjunct faculty. We cannot accept applications from individuals.
Applications should include a statement of support from your department chair or division dean. This letter should describe the institutional support you expect – such as library assistance with finding materials, instructional design support, alignment with equity initiatives, etc. We also ask that this letter describe how an institution could support OFAR participants in the case of opposition to antiracist teaching.
Team Leader
The team leader plays a key role in the OFAR program representing the team from their college in the following tasks:
- Submit the OFAR application in collaboration with other team members. Include the administrator support letter and agreement from your institutional research department to supply student outcomes data.
- Work with the OFAR coach assigned to your team to arrange monthly regular meetings with team members throughout the program.
- Receive and distribute key email messages from OFAR program leadership regarding research to team members.
- Communicate with OFAR program Program administrators when team members are encountering issues with completing the program.
- Communicate periodic updates to the college administrator who agreed to support the OFAR faculty team. Suggested frequency of (at least twice per semester. (For a total of four updates during the program.)
- Coordinate the end-of-year team showcase.
In addition to the compensation that each individual team member of the OFAR cohort receives, the team leader will receive an additional $750 stipend, divided equally between the December and June invoice payments. The total compensation for the team leader will be $4,250.
Institutional Research
If accepted, we will ask you to please provide evidence that your institutional research office agrees to provide course outcomes data to our researchers. We encourage you to let your institutional research department know now that if you are selected, you will need evidence of this support by the end of September. An email from your institutional research office can meet this requirement.
Feel free to share the following text with your institutional research colleagues:
“To understand how the OFAR program is impacting teaching and learning, the RP Group will request a unitary data file of students enrolled in classes taught by the faculty participating in the OFAR Program. This data will be used to understand what changes if any, the pedagogical practices OFAR faculty participants implement affect students learning. The RP Group will use this information to track and report on student success and retention rates in classes taught by faculty participating in the OFAR program.”
The following data will be requested to cover a timeframe that includes summer 2019 through fall 2023 to examine and identify patterns and changes in students’ outcomes:
- Enrollment and grade information for all sections taught by the participating faculty
- Student demographic information for all students enrolled in sections taught by the participating faculty
Important Dates & Application
We’re seeking a diverse group of participants, including by discipline, type of institution, and student impact. The timeline for applications and the start of the program is below:
- Friday, August 26, informational webinar on 2022-23 OFAR cohort
- Wednesday, September 7, 5 pm Pacific Time – Applications are due
- Wednesday, September 21 – Accepted applicants will be notified
- Friday, September 30, 12 – 1 pm Pacific Time – Required participant kick-off meeting
- October 10 – November 26 – Participants complete a facilitated online OFAR course
Questions?
Please see the Open for Antiracism 2022-23: Frequently Asked Questions re the Call for Participation or watch the informational webinar recorded on August 26 (embedded below).
- Open for Antiracism web page
- OEGlobal Open for Antiracism Press Release
- College of the Canyons Open for Antiracism Press Release
Still have questions? contact unatdaly@oeglobal.org or james.glapa-grossklag@canyons.edu
OFAR 2022-23 CFP Informational Webinar
Video:
Slides:
About CCCOER:
The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) promotes the awareness and adoption of open educational policies, practices, and resources. We believe that these practices will expand student access to education while supporting academic freedom and faculty choice of openly licensed curriculum materials. Our membership includes hundreds of colleges across the US and Canada. CCCOER is part of Open Education Global.