Students hypothesize whether vinegar and ammonia-based glass cleaner are acids or bases. They create designs on index cards using these substances as invisible inks. After the index cards have dried, they apply red cabbage juice as an indicator to reveal the designs.

Critical Perspectives on Open Education

Short Description:
This book represents a starting point towards curating and centering marginal voices and non-dominant epistemic stances in open education. It includes the work of 43 diverse authors whose perspectives challenge the dominant hegemony.

Long Description:
Open education is at a critical juncture. It has moved on from its northern roots and is increasingly being challenged from its own periphery. At the same time, it finds itself marginalised and under threat in an educational sector infiltrated by corporate interests. However, rather than bunkering down, becoming blinkered or even complacent, the editors of this volume believe that the voices from the periphery should be amplified. This book represents a starting point towards curating and centering marginal voices and non-dominant epistemic stances in open education, an attempt at critical pluriversalism. It is a curated collection of 38 blog posts, lectures, talks, articles, and other informal works contributed by 43 diverse authors/co-authors and published since 2013. Each of these contributions offers a perspective on open education that can be considered marginal and that challenges the dominant hegemony.

Word Count: 3186

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Critical Perspectives on Open Education

Short Description:
This book represents a starting point towards curating and centering marginal voices and non-dominant epistemic stances in open education. It includes the work of 43 diverse authors whose perspectives challenge the dominant hegemony.

Long Description:
Open education is at a critical juncture. It has moved on from its northern roots and is increasingly being challenged from its own periphery. At the same time, it finds itself marginalised and under threat in an educational sector infiltrated by corporate interests. However, rather than bunkering down, becoming blinkered or even complacent, the editors of this volume believe that the voices from the periphery should be amplified. This book represents a starting point towards curating and centering marginal voices and non-dominant epistemic stances in open education, an attempt at critical pluriversalism. It is a curated collection of 38 blog posts, lectures, talks, articles, and other informal works contributed by 43 diverse authors/co-authors and published since 2013. Each of these contributions offers a perspective on open education that can be considered marginal and that challenges the dominant hegemony.

Word Count: 83220

ISBN: 978-1-989014-22-6

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

In the fall of 2021, students in Pseudoscience courses started creating this open educational resource (OER), which has been built upon by subsequent classes. Our intention is to create a free textbook for this course that might also be used by students of critical thinking elsewhere and of all ages, whether in a classroom or not. Our growing, interactive textbook employs the Paul-Elder Model and other critical-thinking resources, and is freely available to all, learners and educators alike.

The topic of pseudoscience offers a rewarding way for students to learn the value of thinking critically, even as they get to argue things, like Flat Earth Theory and astrology, that may seem trivial at first. At a time when truth is understood as largely subjective, we have, not surprisingly, seen a resurgence in the popularity of pseudosciences and conspiracy theories, which many consider to hold significant truth value, just as valid as physical evidence. It is our aim here to demonstrate the reasoned analysis process — weighing truth, belief, opinion, and fact — so that others may be able to replicate this process and reason through their own questions about vaccines, extra-terrestrials, genetic modification, or the first people to arrive in the Americas.