What is Open Pedagogy?
OPEN PEDAGOGY
First, let’s break down each part of the term, open and then pedagogy.
In the last chapter, you learned about the open education movement and OER. In the case of open pedagogy, open is based on the same principles of sharing information publicly and globally and that the rights to access this information comes without financial, technical, or legal barriers.[1]
And the word pedagogy means the practice and theory of teaching and learning.[2] There are different types of pedagogies, like constructivist or collaborative. Open pedagogy is another type of pedagogy, but one that is inclusive, engaging, and rooted in social justice principles.[3]
If you were to Google “What is Open Pedagogy?” you would get a myriad of definitions and explanations. Here are some of them:
Open Pedagogy is the “Use/reuse/creation of OER and collaborative, pedagogical practices employing social and participatory technologies for interaction, peer-learning, knowledge creation and sharing, and empowerment of learners.” – Catherine Cronin[4]
“Open pedagogy, also known as open educational practices (OEP), is the use of open educational resources (OER) to support learning. When you use open pedagogy in your classroom, you are inviting your students to be part of the teaching process, participating in the co-creation of knowledge.” – BC Campus[5]
“Open pedagogy is the practice of engaging with students as creators of information rather than simply consumers of it. It’s a form of experiential learning in which students demonstrate understanding through the act of creation.” – Iowa State University[6]
Did you notice anything these definitions have in common?
- SPARC. (n.d.). Open education. Accessed September 6, 2023. https://sparcopen.org/open-education/ ↵
- “Pedagogy” (2023). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy ↵
- Bali, M. (2017). “April open perspective: What is open pedagogy?” Year of Open. https://www.yearofopen.org/april-open-perspective-what-is-open-pedagogy/ ↵
- Cronin, C. (2017). “Openness and praxis: Exploring the use of open educational practices in higher education”. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(5). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i5.3096. ↵
- BCcampus. (n.d.). What is open pedagogy? Accessed September 14, 2023. https://open.bccampus.ca/what-is-open-education/what-is-open-pedagogy/#:~:text=Open%20pedagogy%2C%20also%20known%20as,%2C%20professional%2C%20and%20individual%20level. ↵
- Iowa State University. (n.d.). Why open education? – Build engagement with open pedagogy. https://open.lib.iastate.edu/open-education/pedagogy#:~:text=Open%20pedagogy%20is%20%22the%20practice,through%20the%20act%20of%20creation. ↵
Open Pedagogy from The Open Pedagogy Student Toolkit Copyright © 2023 by The Open Education Network is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.