This project can be an opportunity for students to participate in transformational knowledge production. Sometimes called open pedagogy or open educational practices, this approach engages students as creators of openly licensed content for a real-world audience (Pearce et al., 2022). Open pedagogy is one of the frameworks underpinning our Matrix of Approaches for Equity-Minded Design. It challenges authors and instructors to consider how student voices could be included in the course materials we will share. Doing so is not required, but does fit into all four areas of our Criteria for Success: Learner Focus, Representation of Diverse Voices, Accessibility, and Oregon Context.

Open educational practices include the approaches, supports, and processes necessary for students to create work that they want to share with an open license. These practices can be transformative because they invite students into a different relationship with instructors and with knowledge. With open pedagogy, students can be collaborators and creators in addition to being learners. Instructors can rely less on assignments created only for the instructor to read, and instead share their students’ work with a real-world audience.

Implementing Open Pedagogy

Open educator Maha Bali offers guiding questions on what it means to “open” education: “When we call anything ‘open’ we need to clarify: What are we opening, how are we opening it, for whom, and why?” (Bali, 2017). Students can engage with Dr. Bali’s questions about the work they create for a course.

In particular, textbooks developed through the Open Curriculum Development Project will be published with an open license. Students may choose not to attach an open license to their work for a variety of valid reasons. This may be especially resonant for students from marginalized communities where knowledge and skills have historically been appropriated, stolen, or mischaracterized. Giving students invitations, options, and choices is critical in creating projects with integrity. It’s a good idea to offer a public option and a private option (an alternative to the open assignment that’s only read by you, or only read by you + classmates).

As you think about equity-minded design for your open curriculum, consider how you might invite students to share their voices and generate knowledge in your textbook. The suggestions below are intended to emphasize ideas that can be feasible in the timeline of our projects. We discuss open pedagogy in more depth in Year 2, Unit 3.

• Reach out to current or former students to gauge their interest in contributing openly licensed stories, research, art projects, personal interviews, or reflections to your project. Project funding may be available to compensate students for their time and labor.
• Author team members let the Project Manager know if there are spaces for student work designed into the current textbook manuscript draft. Pilot Instructors (whether or not they are also authors) can design assignments that generate student work to fill these gaps.
• Pilot Instructors can work with their Instructional Designer to “open” their course design in other ways that center sharing and equity, potentially creating content that authors may want to incorporate into the textbook.

Open Pedagogy Resources

Optional reading:

• What is Open Pedagogy? [Website]. David Wiley is one of the foundational thinkers in the open education field. This blog post defines open pedagogy as an effective teaching practice.
• Open Pedagogy Notebook [Website]. Robin DeRosa and Rajiv Jhangiani have made open pedagogy more accessible and understandable to other instructors. This website includes an essay they co-authored that broadens Wiley’s definition of open pedagogy.
• Your Discomfort Is Valid: Big Feelings and Open Pedagogy [Website]. Liz Pearce, Silvia Lin Hanick, Amy Hofer, Lori Townsend, and Michaela Willi Hooper co-authored an article about the affective dimensions of implementing open pedagogy. It includes a visual model showing how open educators can raise or lower the stakes of an open pedagogy assignment.

There are also collections of open pedagogy projects to explore for examples:

• Open Pedagogy projects compiled by Austin Community College Library Services [Website]. Includes examples of students as textbook contributors, students as question bank authors, students as community partners, and students as content producers.
• Open Pedagogy Approaches [Website]. Explores open pedagogy projects from a number of academic disciplines.
• Open Pedagogy Assignments [Website]. Covers ways that students might edit existing works, revise and remix existing works, build ancillaries (things like test banks, presentation tools, practice problem sets, and illustrations), or contribute original work.

Unit Self-Check Questions

Licenses and Attributions for Open Pedagogy: Centering Student Voices

Open content, original

“Open Pedagogy: Centering Student Voices” by Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Open content, shared previously

“Open Pedagogy” introduction is adapted from Getting Started with Open Educational Practices and Open Educational Practices by Veronica Vold, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

References