Open Pedagogy encompasses a set of theories, practices, and philosophies that centers students in their learning experience through the use of open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP). The 5Rs (reuse, redistribute, revise, remix, retain) enabled by open licensing provide both instructors and their students greater access to educational materials but more significantly the ability to adapt the materials to meet their local needs and share publicly if desired. For our purposes, open educational practices (OEP) may be defined as those practices adopted by practitioners, institutions, and governing bodies to support access to knowledge and empower learner agency in the curation, creation, and sharing of information.
In classroom practice, open pedagogy is often associated with the utilization of non-disposable or renewable assignments as opposed to the single-use “disposable assignment” as described by David Wiley in 2013 as those assignments where students are required to produce something for their teacher to grade but which neither will ever use again. Instead, open pedagogy engages students as curators and creators of knowledge who demonstrate their learning through projects which ultimately can be shared with peers or professionals in their disciplinary field.
Our members have been keenly interested in open pedagogy and its potential for empowering faculty and students, particularly marginalized groups whose voices, histories, and cultures are underrepresented in traditional content and classroom practices. You can view CCCOER webinars featuring the topic and also engage with the CCCOER’s Summer Open Pedagogy Adventure targeted at inspiring and empowering faculty to build their own open pedagogy projects.
Summer Open Pedagogy Adventure
The Summer Open Pedagogy Adventure utilizes the OEG Connect Platform for discussions and sharing ideas and resources including tutorial sessions for those who want to participate. There are options to participate asynchronously but also through live events aka Zoom meetings covering: the how to define open pedagogy, key resources created by thought leaders and practitioners, and popular tools/ such as H5P and Hypothes.is for fostering interactivity and engagement in the classroom. Samples below
- Suggested Resources for Learning About Open Pedagogy
- Sharing Resources and Examples of Open Pedagogy
- Open Pedagogy and the UN Sustainability Goals
- Adventuring in Interactivity with H5P
- Interested in Web Annotation, Try it out!
Open Pedagogy Roadmap
Two of our special guests at the Summer Open Pedagogy Adventure were the authors of the Open Pedagogy Roadmap: Christina Riehman-Murphy, Reference & Instruction Librarian at Penn State Abington and Brian MCGeary, Learning Design & Open Education Engagement Librarian at Penn State University. Their roadmap takes a project-based approach leading practitioners through four key steps in the planning process with associated guided questions and activity sheets. The addition of a glossary and case studies rounds out this excellent roadmap with practical examples of typical open pedagogy projects.
- Step 1: Define the scope of your open pedagogy project by examining your goals, capacity, and what it is that students will be doing in your class. The class activity should consider timeline, content covered, and how and where students will be accomplishing the desired outputs.
- Step 2: Understand the support needs and availability of resources including funding if needed for achieving your envisioned project. Will your project require library, instructional design, or technology support to achieve its goals and is that available?
- Step 3: Examine the power imbalances between students and instructors. What are the outputs, how will they be assessed? Are there any ethical concerns in asking students to openly license their work?
- Step 4: Build your action plan