The generally accepted definition of ‘open pedagogy’ refers to “the universe of teaching and learning practices that are possible when you adopt OER but are impossible when you adopt traditionally copyrighted materials.” (Wiley, 2015). There are two issues with this definition. Firstly, as Wiley himself acknowledges, simply adopting OER as part of your teaching practice doesn’t necessarily result in engaging or innovative learning design. Secondly, what about student work that goes beyond the “disposable assignment” and both engages with, and is published on, the open web yet doesn’t explicitly use open licenses? Is this teaching and learning practice any less meaningful or ‘open’?
Taking this debate as her starting point Marianne Gianacopoulos (LSM and Educational Technology) recently led an engaging webinar for the Educational Technology Users Group where she talked through her first steps in adopting open pedagogy in her practice. Frustrated with both the restrictive nature of the course textbook (which students often don’t purchase for cost and other reasons) and the walled garden environment of the LMS Marianne instead engaged her students in a wide range of tools available on the open web in order to showcase their work. By adopting this approach Marianne found that her students —many of whom were international students struggling to get to grips with independent learning — were starting to become active and critical creators and co-creators of knowledge.
Marianne goes into more depth in the webinar discussing some of the web tools she used with her students and some of the challenges she faced. You can listen to a recording of the webinar here.
Sources:
Wiley, D (2015) ‘Open Pedagogy: The importance of getting in the air’ https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3761
LaLonde (2017) ‘Does Open Pedagogy require OER?’ https://clintlalonde.net/2017/02/04/does-open-pedagogy-require-oer/
