Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash
Open Pedagogy is a teaching philosophy that has students creating, curating and contributing to the learning environment. Many instructors already do this in some way and it is a philosophical approach that considers what the student can contribute to the course to be a co-creator of content rather than just a learner who absorbs information.
Additionally, students have the opportunity to create work with a broader impact that can live beyond the classroom walls. There is value in allowing for students to shape and construct the products that show evidence of their learning.
Here is an example of a compilation of infographics as evidence of learning from student research on environment and sustainability issues: https://environment.geog.ubc.ca/infographics/
Courses need to evolve and change with the participants. The more students can understand and participate in the construction of the course, the better. This isn’t something done to or for the students but something done with them.
Let’s look at some examples of students contributing to open textbooks or other OERs:
- This blog post, in which Robin DeRosa reflects on her process to include students in the creation of a class textbook.
- This textbook, published by the Rebus Community, serves as a handbook for faculty interested in including students in the creation and curation of an open textbook and course materials.
- This project, an interdisciplinary OER repository for case studies, co-curated by students and faculty.
- This University, that called on students and involved them in advocacy and policy development, resulting in terrific projects that exemplify Open Pedagogy.
When Open Pedagogy is practiced publicly its methods, tools, artifacts, and results can be made freely and openly available to the public. They can be disputed, replicated, evaluated, and argued about. Students are not just contributing to their course, they are contributing to the larger conversations and influencing their world.
“Students are helping me put together the pieces through reusable assignments: creating case studies, rewriting the text, creating videos. It engages students more but also adds to the base materials for the course.”
Lorena Mathien, Professor of Business, SUNY Buffalo State College
Open Pedagogy allows us to examine the relationship between what we know about effective teaching and learning and the additional capabilities afforded by OER to freely access, reuse, remix, revise and redistribute learning materials and resources. Open Pedagogy encompasses a variety of teaching approaches wherein students add their voices and academic work to reusable materials meant to enrich future classes or enhance their digital identities.
Explore this model of a research project that connects students with a community partner to develop and produce a product that benefits the partnership: 400-Level Research Practicum
Assignment #2: Revise and Remix
GUIDELINES: Explore the 5 resources listed here: Open Pedagogy Examples on Listly
Choose an activity that would work in your course. Explain how the activity exemplifies Open Pedagogy and describe how the activity would look in your course (what needs to be adapted, what will students be asked to do/create/contribute?) In your blog post, please be sure to link to the list.ly resource you chose to write about.
Provide the URL to your blog in a comment to the Workplace group post on this assignment.
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