Learning objectives:

-Leverage the benefits of openly licensed materials to create more culturally responsive and relevant learning environments and resources for students
-Develop a set of inclusive teaching practices to implement in your course that center students as authoritative voices
-Revise or create a renewable assignment that invites students as knowledge creators
-Leverage Open Pedagogy to center social justice in your course learning outcomes

This 2020 report analyzes current Open Education policies and practices in the Northeast states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont) and highlights efforts of particular note that could be replicated in other states.

Listen to New England college and university open education leaders Dr. Robin DeRosa from New Hampshire, Dr. Jennifer Van Allen from New York, and Dr. Heather Miceli from Rhode Island share what Open pedagogy looks like in their classrooms, lessons learned they’ve learned along the way, and why their praxis is ever-changing.

This webinar was intended for faculty, librarians, and anyone interested in seeing real examples of what Open Pedagogy looks like in practice and advice for getting started on your campus.

This resource is intended to provide practitioners with introductory, practical content that they can learn from and adapt to better support their own campus Open Education efforts, particularly Open Pedagogy. It is not intended to be an extensive or exhaustive resource about the educational theories and frameworks out of which Open Pedagogy has emerged, as there are several other wonderful resources that cover that information. It includes a podcast series of teaching faculty interviews that will be helpful for other faculty seeking to learn more about their peers’ experiences with open pedagogy, and librarians will benefit from hearing firsthand perspectives so they can better understand the necessary support. Also included are one-shot lesson plans intended to assist academic librarians tasked with supporting faculty embarking on open pedagogy projects, however, we recognize that it often takes a village, and individuals in other roles will also benefit from these (adaptable) lesson plans.

As OER awareness continues to increase in postsecondary education, faculty are becoming more curious about how they might invite their students into the creation process, often referred to as Open Pedagogy. As editors and/or creators of OER, students have the opportunity to make existing course content more culturally responsive and representative of their own lived experiences. This collaborative process organically generates opportunities to encourage the diversification of the curriculum and reverse historical inequities perpetuated in commercial textbooks, which are far less likely to be inclusive and representative of underrepresented and marginalized voices.

Although Open Pedagogy provides a new and exciting opportunity to invite the student into the scholarly conversation, it’s crucial to scaffold this process to ensure we both respect student agency and help them create the most accessible, representative, high-quality OER.

Panelists and OER practitioners Hannah Davidson, Accessibility Specialist at Plymouth State University; Will Cross, Director of the Copyright & Digital Scholarship Center in the NC State University Libraries; Stacy Katz, Assistant Professor and Open Resources Librarian-STEM Liaison at Lehman College, City University of New York; and Steel Wagstaff, Educational Product Manager at Pressbooks shared their expertise and relevant experiences concerning topics like author agency, privacy, accessibility, and copyright and fair use.

In a third and final webinar in its series on exploring aspects of Open Pedagogy, the New England Board of Higher Education is honored to welcome Jasmine Roberts as she leads us in a discussion on the importance of centering social justice in this work.

Open education frameworks address high-cost course materials, but with an increase in the adoption of open educational materials, conversations about inclusive teaching, social justice, and anti-racism pedagogical practices need to be at the center of open practices. Roberts’ talk will address the urgency of adopting social justice practices in open education and strategies on how to do this.