Open Educational Practices and Open Pedagogy: What, How and Why (Langara College)

Editor's Notes

• #7: Hodgkinson-Williams, C. 2014-06-25. Degrees of ease: adoption of OER, open textbooks and MOOCs in the Global South. Regional Symposium on Open Educational Resources (2nd : 2014 : Wawasan Open University, Malaysia). University of Cape Town. From Cronin & MacLaren 2018: “Hodgkinson-Williams (2014) elaborated further, disaggregating the social dimension of openness into two dimensions: cultural and pedagogical. The revised framework has five attributes of openness within a larger ‘Open Education’ cycle: Technical (interoperability and open formats; connectivity; technical skills & equipment; availability and discoverability of resources) Legal (open license parameters; open license knowledge and advice) Cultural (conceptions of knowledge as given or constructed; curricula) Pedagogical (student demographics and types of engagement; pedagogic, learning & assessment strategies; accreditation/certification) Financial (costs ranging from free to fees; sustainable business models)” Blessinger & Bliss 2019. Introduction to Open Education: Towards a Human Rights Theory. https://www.ijoer.org/introduction-to-open-education-towards-a-human-rights-theory_doi-10-18278-ijoer-1-1-5/ Spatial dimension of open: “Regarding the spatial dimension, open education (e.g., open educational resources, open courseware, massive online open courses) allows people to access and participate in education regardless of their physical/geographic location, provided of course that they have the means” Temporal dimension “allows people to access and participate in education regardless of the time of day, month, or year, and independent of others’ time considerations. In other words, open education need not be a synchronous form of communication as in the traditional higher education model” Process dimension “Within the structural constraints of the educational platform and the usage policies and rules, students are free to determine if, when, and how they will access and participate in open education and they are free to self-determine what learning needs (outcomes) they want to meet”
• #8: Cronin & MacLaren OPAL from 2011: “OEP are defined as practices which support the (re)use and production of OER through institutional policies, promote innovative pedagogical models, and respect and empower learners as co-producers on their lifelong learning path (p. 12).” “Hodgkinson-Williams (2014) elaborated further, disaggregating the social dimension of openness into two dimensions: cultural and pedagogical. The revised framework has five attributes of openness within a larger ‘Open Education’ cycle: Technical (interoperability and open formats; connectivity; technical skills & equipment; availability and discoverability of resources) Legal (open license parameters; open license knowledge and advice) Cultural (conceptions of knowledge as given or constructed; curricula) Pedagogical (student demographics and types of engagement; pedagogic, learning & assessment strategies; accreditation/certification) Financial (costs ranging from free to fees; sustainable business models) “
• #9: Beetham et al (2012) Open scholarship includes open access publication, open science and open research
• #10: Open pedagogy having to do specifically with teaching practices with students
• #11: From 2014 interview in Campus Technology Open pedagogy, as defined by David Wiley, focuses primarily on the relationship between the open licensing of content and the additional options students and instructors then have to remix that content as part of the work of the course. He stresses the move away from "disposable assignments." That is undoubtedly important and powerful. Still, a broader consideration may be useful. Looking at open pedagogy as a general philosophy of openness (and connection) in all elements of the pedagogical process, while messy, provides some interesting possibilities. Open is a purposeful path towards connection and community. Open pedagogy could be considered as a blend of strategies, technologies, and networked communities that make the process and products of education more transparent, understandable, and available to all the people involved. At VCU, we attempted to create a truly open pedagogical experience with the #thoughtvectors cMOOC. It can serve to illustrate some key elements of open pedagogy: open planning, open products, and open post hoc (reflections after the fact). Open planning. Prior to the start of a course built on open pedagogy there is a focus on collaboration regarding what the course might be — the content, the lessons, the tools of construction, and the teaching strategies are all part of a larger conversation. You can see what other instructors have done — their resources, their lessons, or their reflections on what happened during their course. You can use what they or their students have made. You can engage those students and instructors directly. This is a complete reversal from what is normally a very isolated and opaque process. Open products. There are a couple of pieces that happen in the process of the course (and beyond, if things work well) that engage with the concept of open in a few ways. The course itself happens in the open. Students are publishing for an audience greater than their instructor. That matters. Their work, being open, has the potential to be used for something larger than the course itself and to be part of a larger global conversation… Another element of openness that is inherently valuable but often overlooked is creating assignments that are open enough to engage students. There is value in allowing for students to shape and construct the products that show evidence of their learning. In #thoughtvectors, assignment options were flexible and focused on student choice within certain parameters. These assignments weren't oriented around word counts, or formats, or following precise directions; instead they focused on higher-level outcomes. … #thoughtvectors also focused on explaining to the students the pedagogical choices being made — why we're doing what we do. This also hints at another element of open construction, which is the ongoing shaping and refining of the course in progress. Courses need to evolve and change with the participants. The students should understand what is happening and why. The more students can understand and participate in the construction of the course, the better. This isn't something done to the students but something done with them. Open post hoc. After the course, reflecting and documenting how the course went is valuable both to the instructor and to those who might be considering similar courses or pedagogical strategies. People are happy enough to present and document success but it's still not common practice to reflect on elements that don't work well…
• #12: “In introducing the idea of OER-enabled pedagogy, we ask what it means to add the 5R permissions to these public entities - to be consciously engaged in either building upon work previously done by another or to construct a new public entity that explicitly offers other learners permission to publicly transform and adapt it. When student works are openly licensed, granting others 5R permissions in their use of the artifacts, each work becomes the beginning of an ongoing conversation in which other learners participate as they contextualize and extend the work in support of their own learning. Open licensing also ensures that these artifacts will be perpetually and freely available to all who wish to engage them as part of their learning.” We propose the following four-part test to determine the extent to which a specific teaching and learning practice qualifies as OER-enabled pedagogy, as exemplified by the idea of renewable assignments: Are students asked to create new artifacts (essays, poems, videos, songs, etc.) or revise/remix existing OER? Does the new artifact have value beyond supporting the learning of its author? Are students invited to publicly share their new artifacts or revised/remixed OER? Are students invited to openly license their new artifacts or revised/remixed OER?
• #15: Link to info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/UBC/ENG470D-003_Canadian_Studies_(2017) 400 level English course at UBC, Canadian Studies: Kathryn Grafton, instructor. CanLit Edit-a-thon (43 students plus instructor), 2017. “This CanLit Edit-a-thon assignment asks you to address the exigence of equitable representation in Wikipedia by contributing new or expanding existing articles about Canadian literature. … As a group, choose a topic relevant to our focus on Canadian literature (e.g., an author, text, or institution) that you argue is currently underrepresented in and symptomatic of systemic bias on Wikipedia.”
• #16: Links: Antologia Abierta de Literatura Hispana: https://press.rebus.community/aalh/ Environmental Science Bites: https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/sciencebites/ Fundamentals of Injury Biomechanics open textbook project page: https://wiki.ubc.ca/Documentation:FIB A guide to making open textbooks with students: https://press.rebus.community/makingopentextbookswithstudents/ The following is from Rebus’ Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students: Dr. Julie Ward, an assistant professor of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Latin American literature at University of Oklahoma…. In the fall 2016 semester, she embarked on a project in her Spanish-language literature course, Introduction to Hispanic Literature and Culture, in which groups of four to five students selected ten texts from the fifteenth century to the twentieth century to include in a critical edition. Ward and a graduate student “research guide” had pre-established lists of texts students could review and choose from. For each work, the student groups compiled context in the form of an introduction, at least ten annotations on the text about style, references and colloquialisms, an image and a biography about the author… and a bibliography. The content of the critical edition was developed in the class, but the work on the text didn’t end there. In the subsequent semester, two students were paid to take the critical edition, verify the facts and public domain licenses, and format it using Pressbooks. Environmental Science Bites From Letter to Readers: “This book was written by undergraduate students at The Ohio State University (OSU) who were enrolled in the class Introduction to Environmental Science.  The chapters describe some of Earth’s major environmental challenges and discuss ways that humans are using cutting-edge science and engineering to provide sustainable solutions to these problems.  Topics are as diverse as the students, who represent virtually every department, school and college at OSU.  The environmental issue that is described in each chapter is particularly important to the author, who hopes that their story will serve as inspiration to protect Earth for all life.” Fundamentals of Injury Biomechanics assignment LOs Select an area of research in injury biomechanics that interests you Explain the importance of the specific research area you selected Perform literature searches in that area of injury biomechanics, including both medical indexes and engineering sources Identify and evaluate experimental and theoretical techniques used in the literature in the area of research you selected Categorize and judge the quality, scope, and applicability of research literature in that area Describe and evaluate problems and controversies in that research area Identify and prioritize future research needing to be done in that area Organize a bibliography Summarize your results for the class in a presentation Complete a section of an open online textbook on your topic (if you do not want to share your work openly, there will be an alternate option – you will still need to complete the other aspects) Critically review material created by others The open textbook will contain both sections on basic course topics (grad student project) and sections on the literature review topics (all students). The open textbook will be set up on a UBC wiki, and will be available for future students to use and build on.
• #17: UBC open case studies: https://cases.open.ubc.ca Montgomery College UN SDG assignments: https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/offices/elite/unesco/ Summer 2018 Faculty Fellowship (from: https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/_documents/offices/elite/sdg-presentation-march-2019.pdf) Interdisciplinary and intercampus faculty teams tackle at least one common SDG –15 faculty fellows in 7 teams across 12 disciplines in 16 courses with 570+ students Three renewable assignments, two of their choosing to be deployed in Fall 2018 courses One example: The Hidden Costs assignment (English, Math, Sociology): https://mcsdg.wordpress.com/the-hidden-costs/ Regarding apparel industry, create infographic, PSA, or cartoon about hidden costs of this industry (e.g., pollution, habitat destruction, human rights abuses). Infographic includes: Original computations/statistics comparing the cost of production with the retail price and also demonstrating the human cost involved (based on a garment/item that you purchased) A plan detailing where and how the infographic will be distributed Another one: Spanish and Chemistry: “CultivatingResponsible Useand Recycling Practicesof Plastic Products” https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/_documents/offices/elite/responsible-production-consumption-assignment-2.pdf Investigate how poor recycling practices are impacting rivers, ponds, the ocean or the earth and the consequences this can have on ocean life and on human health. Lookup several articles, blogs, videos and/or contact people locally (ex.: an industry, a university)to learn more about the impact of recycling practices in your community, the Spanish-speaking country you selected or other areas of the world. Then, working with a partner, combine the research you have found to create an informational pamphlet, video or social media site to raise awareness and to communicate the impact good and poor recycling practices can have on society, both in your local community and the specific Spanish-speaking country you selected.”
• #18: TLEF project: Title Felling Language Barriers: An Open, Online, Multilingual Dictionary of Forestry Faculty/College/Unit Forestry Status Active Duration 1 YearInitiation04/01/2019 Project Summary Of the 1,147 undergraduates enrolled in the Faculty of Forestry, 42.5% are international. Of those, 205 are participants in the ‘3+2’ program, taking 3 years of courses at a partner university in China then transferring to UBC to complete two additional years of coursework and receive a UBC degree. Although all English Language Learners (ELLs) meet English proficiency standards, the challenges presented by technical and forestry-specific jargon add a significant barrier to learning. At the suggestion of current 3+2 students, we propose to create an open, online, multilingual forestry dictionary in the form of a wiki that students can grow and refine. The dictionary would cater to the diversity of languages in our Faculty and provide a BC forestry context to key terms and their definitions. This dictionary would be a vital tool for international students as they transition to UBC, making it easier to learn and thrive. From Will: The Multilingual Forestry Dictionary (which was in my previous doc but wasn’t built yet and is being run by Patric Culbert and the Forestry Student Diversity Crew) is one of my favorite new open resource projects – it was in my previous doc but wasn’t off the ground yet: https://wiki.ubc.ca/Documentation:MFD.  Students are curating open resources (they are pulling definitions from multiple open sources/government docs) and creating something new from them (e.g. https://wiki.ubc.ca/Documentation:MFD/Term/ascospore).  I think the next step is to have students in specific courses create and map terms to those courses. Here’s an assignment in APBI200 (Maja Krzic) where students publicly review/summarize news articles about soil: https://wiki.ubc.ca/Course:APBI200/Soil_in_the_News.  Those summaries are then fed to a Soil 4 Youth website (which is used by high school science teachers) with the goal of making soil science a living topic: https://soil4youth.soilweb.ca/soil-in-the-news-bonus-assignment-feed-2018w/ (looks like they may need to fix some formatting on the soil4youth side).
• #19: 10 ways to annotate with students: https://web.hypothes.is/blog/back-to-school-with-annotation-10-ways-to-annotate-with-students/
• #20: Links: Ds106 assignment bank: http://assignments.ds106.us/ Jhangiani Social Psychology course: https://thatpsychprof.com/why-have-students-answer-questions-when-they-can-write-them/ Student video tutorials explained: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/3022/4222 DeRosa First Year Seminar: http://robinderosa.net/higher-ed/extreme-makeover-pedagogy-edition/ From above article on student video tutorials: “… at certain points in the course where students have struggled in the past, all students are given the opportunity to raise their grade if they create a tutorial video for a particular assignment. These tutorial videos are evaluated and a few of these are selected to be placed into the course. “Finally, after demonstrating high levels of mastery, strong students are offered the opportunity to be a teaching assistant for the upcoming semester. These students create notes for each unit, study guides for exams, tutorial videos, and review presentations and games that are all added to the course and released as OER.” From Jhangiani’s blog post: The students were asked to write 4 questions each week, 2 factual (e.g., a definition or evidence-based prediction) and 2 applied (e.g., scenario-type). For the first two weeks they wrote just one plausible distractor (I provided the question stem, the correct answer, and 2 plausible distractors). They also peer reviewed questions written by 3 of their (randomly assigned) peers. For the next two weeks they wrote two plausible distractors; For the next two weeks they wrote all 3 plausible distractors; For the remainder of the semester they wrote the stem, the correct answer, and all the distractors. From DeRosa: “In OpenSem, I decided to let students design the grading process.  It took a couple of weeks (while we simultaneously did other things as well) to hammer it out. Basically, they designed a competency-based model where they would have unlimited time within the confines of the course to improve each assignment if it initially they did not “achieve the competency.” Achieving the competency would require them to meet all of the parameters of the rubrics, which were often designed by the students as they crafted the assignments.”
• #22: https://www.yearofopen.org/april-open-perspective-what-is-open-pedagogy/
• #24: From DeRosa and Jhangiani essay open pedagogy: http://openpedagogy.org/open-pedagogy/ “So one key component of Open Pedagogy might be that it sees access, broadly writ, as fundamental to learning and to teaching, and agency as an important way of broadening that access. OERs are licensed with open licenses, which reflects not just a commitment to access in terms of the cost of knowledge, but also access in terms of the creation of knowledge. Embedded in the social justice commitment to making college affordable for all students is a related belief that knowledge should not be an elite domain. Knowledge consumption and knowledge creation are not separate but parallel processes, as knowledge is co-constructed, contextualized, cumulative, iterative, and recursive. In this way, Open Pedagogy invites us to focus on how we can increase access to higher education and how we can increase access to knowledge–both its reception and its creation. This is, fundamentally, about the dream of a public learning commons, where learners are empowered to shape the world as they encounter it.” Blessinger and Bliss (2019; Introduction to Open Education: Towards a Human Rights Theory) point to Kahle (2008: Designing Open Education Technology), who also adds: Ownership: “Open education is also designed for ownership when technology and content are licensed in such a way that users can both modify and retain the resource in perpetuity.” (Blessinger & Bliss 2019). Participation: “Open education is designed for participation when it is well-designed for access, agency, and ownership. In other words, these aspects lead to participation by learners and educators. As open education promotes these fundamental principles, students and teachers are more likely to collaborate and participate in inclusive activities.” Experience: referring to user-friendliness and human-centred design.
• #26: DeRosa & Jhangiani, “Open Pedagogy”: http://openpedagogy.org/open-pedagogy/ “we might think about Open Pedagogy as an access-oriented commitment to learner-driven education AND as a process of designing architectures and using tools for learning that enable students to shape the public knowledge commons of which they are a part.” Jesse Stommel: https://www.slideshare.net/jessestommel/open-pedagogy-building-compassionate-spaces-for-online-learning ”Open pedagogy creates a perforated community—a networked group of learners tat extends beyond the bounds of those officially enrolled in a term-based class. And hopefully a community that outlives the course that gave birth to it.” UBC audio: Audio Storytelling Assignments (e.g. David Gaertner, FNIS301t; Duncan McHugh, LFS400): students in David Gaerter and Duncan McHugh’s courses work with CiTR 101.9 (UBC’s Community Radio Station) to develop public service announcements, soundscapes, podcasts, interviews and more. Students can then choose to publish their work on various platforms, which the public can see and interact with, including websites, podcasts, broadcasts, and gallery installations. Links:  https://blogs.ubc.ca/fnis401w/audio-storytelling/  http://lfs400.landfood.ubc.ca  https://open.ubc.ca/open-dialogues-how-to-engage-and-support-students-in-open-pedagogies/ Re: Gaertner’s class, from last link above: “For another project, his students created a series of podcasts on Indigenous issues alongside CiTR, the campus radio station. “They’re doing three-hour radio docs on Indigenous issues that they think are important and that the university as a whole should be aware of,” Gaertner explains. The podcasts will be distributed across campus, with the names of the students who created them. “Holding up students’ research and pointing to the ways in which they are making contributions is something I’ve tried to do as a professor, to add validity to those voices and to make those voices heard,” Gaertner says.