Presentation Description: Towards Openness that Promotes Social Justice

In this presentation, Dr. Maha Bali shares different perspectives on the design and practice of open education that promotes social justice. Dr. Bali encourages participants to reflect on their own educational practices and to evaluate the assumption that openness inherently promotes social justice. Participants collaboratively explore how to strengthen the social justice orientation of open course materials and practices in order to promote social justice for diverse communities and groups.

Presenter Biography for Dr. Maha Bali

Maha Bali is an Associate Professor of Practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo. She has a PhD in Education from the University of Sheffield, UK. She is co-founder of virtuallyconnecting.org, a grassroots movement that challenges academic gatekeeping at conferences, and co-facilitator of Equity Unbound, an equity-focused, open, connected intercultural learning curriculum, which has also branched into academic community activities with Continuity with Care and Socially Just Academia and a collaboration with OneHE: Community-building Resources. She writes and speaks frequently about social justice, critical pedagogy, and open and online education. She blogs regularly at http://blog.mahabali.me and tweets @bali_maha.

All content on this page is by Maha Bali and is licensed CC BY-NC.