Open Pedagogy takes Open Educational Resources (OER) as a jumping-off point to rethink the relationship between teachers, students and knowledge. When teachers and students are able to modify their own textbooks and learning materials, we shift the student emphasis toward contribution to knowledge rather than simple consumption of knowledge. Students move from consumers of course content to co-creators of course content. Teachers and students become learners together, and content becomes dynamic and always evolving, rather than static content to be mastered.
Open Pedagogy is comprised of four basic guiding ideas.
Open Pedagogy improves access to education. Converting to OER enables us to consider our pedagogies in relationship to every access issue we encounter as we teach.
Open Pedagogy treats education as a learner-driven process. Open Pedagogy asks us to rethink every aspect of the courses we build to consider how students can be empowered to move into the driver’s seat.
Open Pedagogy stresses community and collaboration over content. Open Pedagogy works to connect learners to their fields, peers, colleagues, and mentors via healthy networks so that they can draw on those communities to continue learning past the end date of the course.
Open Pedagogy connects the student and course to the wider public. When we encourage students to put their work before a public audience, we work to merge theory with practice, engage learners with communities of practice that matter to them and to the world, and make the educational system work for both students and the public good.
Discussion: Defining Open Pedagogy
Pause here and explore some additional readings that help define Open Pedagogy in the course reading list.
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