2 OER-Enabled Pedagogy
Open pedagogy and the role co-creation plays in open educational practice
Open pedagogy as a philosophical approach to teaching goes back to the 1970s, encompassing themes of reduced educational formality; student co-creation of content; trusting learners to determine their own needs and learn by exploring; and intellectual equality of students and teachers.[1]
A growing association of open pedagogy and open educational practices with OER emphasised the learning network and the learner’s place within it.[2]
Open pedagogy became about enabling freedoms for learners, which take many forms:
- Freedom to ask questions
- Freedom to think critically and innovatively, which may include disagreement with the teacher’s perspective
- Freedom to co-design learning experiences, for example setting learning objectives, participating in grade weighting
- Freedom to construct knowledge.[3]
These freedoms link to the concept of co-creation, where “knowledge consumption and knowledge creation are not separate but parallel processes, as knowledge is co-constructed, contextualized, cumulative, iterative, and recursive”.[4] Co-creation is fully realised by pursuing the specific attributes of open pedagogy, as illustrated below.
In educational environments, copyright can create barriers by restricting what students can do. By removing these restrictions, we remove barriers to learning. When considering open pedagogy/education, David Wiley summarised four observations about the role of copyright and how removing these restrictions opens learning.
- We learn by the things we do.
- Copyright restricts what we are permitted to do.
- Consequently copyright restricts what we are permitted to learn.
- ‘Open’ removes these restrictions.[5]
In a 2018 article by Wiley and Hilton a new term emerged: OER enabled-pedagogy. Wiley and Hilton define this as “the set of teaching and learning practices that are only possible or practical in the context of the 5R permissions that are characteristic of OER”.[6]
OER-enabled pedagogy thus provides a framework for renewable and open assessments. The traditional assessment task, also referred to as a disposable assignment, is teacher-driven – students respond to a task set by the teacher, and they produce work which is assessed and then thrown away.
In contrast, renewable and open assessment is student-centric. Students are invited to respond to their contexts by openly working with other learners, sharing their knowledge with each other, and often with the public. Year by year, new students continually contribute to the student-developed body of knowledge. In this way, they produce:
- Openly created works which are an ongoing conversation with other learners as they participate and contextualise
- Renewable assignments which contribute to an ongoing body of knowledge and have value outside the creators’ learning experience.[7]
Examples of OER-enabled pedagogy
Examples
Science Fundamentals: DOER Fellowship Renewable Assignments
These are three renewable and openly accessible assignments, designed for first year undergraduate science students with little or no prior knowledge of science. The assignments are designed to test students’ abilities to gain working knowledge of key scientific principles and to pass on accurate knowledge at an appropriate level for the given audience.[8]
The Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature
Robin De Rosa (Plymouth State University) realised that the anthology of early American literature prescribed for her course was simply a collation of readings in the Public Domain, packaged and sold by a publisher. To make the book more freely accessible, and to engage students with the literature, De Rosa asked students to source the Public Domain versions of the examples, and then write an introduction to each reading explaining its background and relevance.[9]
A Student’s Guide to Tropical Marine Biology
This project began in 2017 when students were writing blog posts for their tropical marine biology course. Students curated and packaged this work into Pressbooks and the new open text was issued in 2019. This work represents a collaborative process with many students across several semesters authoring and editing, and therefore reflects the interests and intentions of a broad range of students, not one person’s ideas.[10]
Explore more examples of open and renewable assignments in the Open Pedagogy Notebook.[11]
- Wiley, D., & Hilton, J. L., III. (2018). Defining OER-enabled pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 19(4). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i4.3601 CC BY 4.0 ↵
- Wiley, D. (2017, May 2). OER-enabled pedagogy. Improving learning. https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/5009 CC-BY 4.0 ↵
- Shimat, L., Lys, R. & Meinke, W. (n.d.). UH OER publishing guide. University of Hawaii. http://pressbooks-dev.oer.hawaii.edu/uhoerpubguide/ CC BY 4.0 ↵
- Jhangiani, R. & DeRosa, R. (n.d.) Open pedagogy notebook. http://openpedagogy.org/ CC BY 4.0 ↵
- Wiley, D. (2017, May 2). OER-enabled pedagogy. Improving learning. https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/5009 CC-BY 4.0 ↵
- Wiley, D., & Hilton, J. L., III. (2018). Defining OER-enabled pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 19(4). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i4.3601 CC BY 4.0 ↵
- Wiley, D., & Hilton III, J. L. (2018). Defining OER-enabled pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 19(4). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i4.3601 CC BY 4.0 ↵
- Jones, H. & Brown, C. (n.d.) Science fundamentals: DOER Fellowship renewable assignments, University of Southern Queensland CC BY 4.0 ↵
- DeRosa, R. (2016). The open anthology of earlier American literature, Plymouth State University. https://openamlit.pressbooks.com/ CC BY 4.0 ↵
- Keene State College Students, BIO 381 Tropical Marine Biology. (n.d.) A student’s guide to tropical marine biology. Keene State College. https://tropicalmarinebio.pressbooks.com/ CC BY 4.0 ↵
- Jhangiani, R. & DeRosa, R. (n.d.) Open pedagogy notebook. http://openpedagogy.org/ CC BY 4.0 ↵
A set of pedagogical practices that include engaging students in content creation and making learning accessible to all. ("The OER Starter Kit " by Abbey Elder is licensed under CC BY 4.0)
Co-creation or co-designing is a learning process whereby knowledge consumption and knowledge creation are parallel processes. It is often realised in education by renewable assignments such as the creation of open textbooks by students. (Adapted from "A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students" by Rebus Community is licensed under CC BY 4.0). See also Renewable assessment.
Practices which encourage the development of openness, community engagement, transparency, responsibility, sharing, and accountability in education. (Adapted from "Open Education Practices: A User Guide for Organisations/Resources and Practices" by Otago Polytechnic, Open Education Practices: A User Guide for Organisations and Individuals is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
A set of intellectual property laws that give the rightsholder of a work (usually the author) exclusive rights over the reproduction, reuse, remixing, display, performance, and redistribution of their work.
(Adapted from "The OER Starter Kit " by Abbey Elder is licensed under CC BY 4.0)
The set of teaching and learning practices that are only possible or practical in the context of the 5R permissions that are characteristic of OER. (Source: "International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning" by David Wiley and John Hilton, is licensed under CC BY 4.0)
A derivative term providing a shortcut to identify the conditions of open when OER are used.
The 5 R’s are: retain, reuse, revise, remix and redistribute.
("ASCCC OERI — OER Basics" by Rachel Arteaga and Suzanne Wakim is licensed under CC BY 4.0)
Assessment tasks in which each student cohort creates or contributes to openly created work, developing an ongoing body of knowledge and which value outside the creators’ learning experience. (Adapted from "Wiley, D., & Hilton III, J. L. (2018). Defining OER-enabled pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 19(4)." is licensed under CC BY 4.0)
Assessment tasks in which students create or contribute to an open resource and contribute to an ongoing, public body of knowledge. See also Renewable assignments. (Source: "International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning" by David Wiley and John Hilton, is licensed under CC BY 4.0)
An assessment task which has no utility after the student has completed it. ( Adapted from "What is Open Pedagogy?" by David Wiley is licensed under CC BY 3.0)
An assignment task which forms part of renewable assessment. (Adapted from "Wiley, D., & Hilton III, J. L. (2018). Defining OER-enabled pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 19(4)." is licensed under CC BY 4.0)
