Summer 2020 Training Team

As I mentioned in our discussion, I am a librarian at my university and have been involved in facilitating a Library-sponsored OER-incentive initiative at my institution, and there are certainly faculty who have been interested in participating and exploring ways to adopt/adapt/use OER for their courses. A challenge I am facing is that the university administration has remained skeptical of the quality of OER and has not embraced practices that really encourage faculty to move in this direction, even with the current pandemic environment. As someone else mentioned during the meeting, there are not policies in place to recognize OER adoption/creation with regard to tenure and promotion, nor has there been an expression of support in terms of release time or other stipended time that faculty could use to develop OER materials.

That said, I am hoping that through the BranchED project, I, and my team, can take further steps to lead by example. If we are able to create high-quality, diversity/inclusion/equity-minded materials that can readily be utilized in our teacher preparation programs and beyond, perhaps the value of such initiatives will be more apparent. It also should help me in terms of being able to "walk the walk" rather than just "talk the talk." I already create information-literacy instruction materials that I use with students, and I am sometimes, but am not always, mindful of how I "license" these for broader use beyond my own. The BranchED program will likely help me be more intentional about sharing, not just through my team's project but also in what I develop and use in my library work. 

Finally, if my specific institution is not quite ready for widespread OER use and creation, I do believe in the potential for our teacher candidates and in-service teachers to benefit from an awareness of existing OER that they can use with their students. I also have confidence in their recognition of the agency and empowerment OER can provide them to meet the individual learning needs of their diverse students. 

Since I am a full-time team member at BranchED and am not currently teaching, my goals may be a little different from the rest of you. However, I do have some main goals/needs/interests that I'd like to explore during this training:

1. I want to learn as much as I possible can about OER so that BranchED can support MSI EPP faculty in their OER endeavors.

2. We will be developing an inclusive pedagogy module, and it would be ideal to be able to use OER in the module.

3.I am finishing up my doctorate in Sociology, and my research is on power in the higher education classroom. I have been asked in the past to share what I've learned about power dynamics and adult learning. I'm wondering if I could create a module for this that could be used to support those who teach in the higher education classroom and even to support professional development trainings.

4. OER is empowering because it decenters the epistemologically privileged and creates a platform for diverse knowledge. A barrier, however, is that OER often does not "count" toward the tenure & promotion dossier. I wish there were a way to help add "weight" to OER content development so that faculty could dedicate more time to it. I'm reminded of informal networking platforms that attract faculty at R1 institutions such as ResearchGate and Academia.edu. Studies have found connections between university "x factors" and how active their faculty are on these platforms. I wonder if that is a way in.

Years ago, when reading Macedo (1994), I was introduced to a poem by Antonio Machado and it stuck with me:

"Traveler, there are no roads, The road is created as we walk it [together]" 

This line pretty much sums up the beginning of my OER journey. My first goal is to learn with you all, and my second goal is to contribute. I have not yet decided what current need/challenge/opportunity my contribution might address. I am excited about that discovery, as we walk this road together.  

As I mentioned on our call, the pandemic has eleveated the need for quality OER/OEP.  Althougth there is a learning curve that I must personally address in regard to OER/OEP, I look forward to learning the best paractices and applying the research to my OER modules.  

I am excited about the unique opportunities that this experience will lead to.  I am also hopeful about using OER materials in my courses.  

The coronavirus has changed the way that instruction is delivered on every level. With that thought in mind, it is imperative that educators have access to quality resources that will help facilitate and enhance learning. One of the challenges faced by my institution was the availability of technology for some students and also the training needed for some educators to effectively implement instruction online. When educators are aware of and have access to quality materials, it enhances their ability to train our future. OER and OEP have the potential for providing access to qualitiy resources as well as builing a network of other educators who can provide insight into things that can be beneficial. 

A current challenge we are facing as MSI (HBCU) is the decrease in the number of Teacher Education students accepted into our program.  For those accepted, an additional challenge has been retention as our candidates have struggled passing the required state examinations (Praxis I and Praxis II).  For most of our students, the problem areas are reading and social studies.  As stated in our introductory session, while this is seemingly a challenge, it presents an opportunity to develop OER that intrigues and provokes a passion for reading for pleasure and for deliberation.  I am hopeful we will be connected to resources that will illuminate my students' desire to read in such a way that the results are translated into passing scores on their exams.  It is our futher desire that this will create a reciprocal effect on the numbers of students in our programs as this hopefully leads to increased efficacy amongst our candidates.

As I mentioned last week, there only a few faculty or staff at my college who have any experience in selecting and using quality OER. As the EPP director, my colleagues and I have had discussions over the past year about how to enhance instructional course materials that would better engage, excite, empower, and prepare our candidates in an urban residency-model type program. Without knowing how to find, select, use and evaluate quality instructional materials in many cases, it has caused us to comfortably continue using a textbook approach, that tends to be expensive, and also is usually not contextual and relevant to the challenges candidates are facing day-to-day at their field placements. However, since the pandemic crises, the sudden need to quickly pivot to finding and using quality instructional materials has been magnified. There were many paper handouts that many of our program faculty members including myself would distribute to students but then suddenly had to be left behind in college offices. For me and other faculty members, that may prove to be a blessing in disguise, since it will now be timely for me to turnkey the summer training and experience to train others who will exponentially train others in the fall to learn about OER and demonstrate quality OEP for future use.

Good evening, 

As I complete my first year at Chicago State University I am particularly intersted in leanring how OER can help me adopt quality materials for my students. While I am eager and open-minded to this option I work side by side with colleagues and other faculty members who for a lack of better words are antiquated in their thinking when it comes to identifying texts and materaials. Perhaps there can be a review process that will ensure a level of quality that will help others find value in this vital resource.