Open Educational Resources: Open Pedagogy and Renewable Assignments

Open Educational Resources (OER) have swept in on a tide of digital information and brought sweeping changes to learning and teaching. In this article, the author establishes a rationale for the term open pedagogy, and, using current research, presents eight attributes of open pedagogy grounded in the concept of openness and Open Educational Practice (OEP).

Conceptualisations of open educational practices (OEP) vary widely, ranging from those centred primarily on the creation and use of open educational resources (OER) to broader definitions of OEP, inclusive of but not necessarily focused on OER. The latter, referred to in this paper as expansive definitions of OEP, encompass open content but also allow for multiple entry points to, and avenues of, openness. This paper explores the theoretical and empirical literature to outline how the concept of OEP has evolved historically. The paper aims to provide a useful synthesis of OEP literature for education researchers and practitioners.

This paper describes the application of Open Pedagogy practices to an undergraduate organizational behavior course in a healthcare management program. Open Pedagogy is defined as the use and creation of Open Educational Resources combined with a high level of student autonomy and self-direction. The paper explores how the application of Open Pedagogy enhances soft-skill competency development. The course structure, assignments, and outcomes are discussed. Open Pedagogy may not be appropriate for all courses, but it is a technique worth considering for its potent experiential learning value.

The term “open pedagogy” has been used in a variety of different ways over the past several decades. In recent years, its use has also become associated with Open Educational Resources (OER). The wide range of competing definitions of open pedagogy, together with its semantic overlap with another underspecified term, open educational practices, makes it difficult to conduct research on the topic of open pedagogy. In making this claim we do not mean to cast doubt on the potential effectiveness of the many pedagogical approaches labeled open. In this article, rather than attempting to argue for a canonical definition of open pedagogy, we propose a new term, “OER-enabled pedagogy,” defined as the set of teaching and learning practices that are only possible or practical in the context of the 5R permissions that are characteristic of OER. We propose criteria used to evaluate whether a form of teaching constitutes OER-enabled pedagogy and analyze several examples of OER-enabled pedagogy with these criteria.

Most course assignments are “disposable” in the sense that they will only ever be seen by the instructor. Moreover, students often see little point in them and rarely revisit them. But what if we redesigned our course assignments to empower our students as creators of resources for the commons? Whether creating videos, editing wiki articles, or writing op eds, open pedagogy might be the best way for us to “give psychology away.”