Open in the North: A Showcase of Open Educational Practices in Northern B.C.

*Note: This session has passed. Please view the recordings and resources below.

The four post-secondary institutions in Northern B.C. — Coast Mountain College, College of New Caledonia, Northern Lights College, and University of Northern British Columbia — have active projects to help grow open educational practices in the region. Join this online event to learn more about the open educational practices being developed in these B.C. institutions.

Amanda Coolidge, Director of Open Education at BCcampus, will deliver the keynote address to start the session and introduce the concept of open educational practices. Presenters from each institution are invited to speak about how their projects, described below, support this idea.

Institutional Sustainability Grant 2020 

Coast Mountain College is developing a cohort of trades faculty to learn about and explore open educational resources (OER) and how they can adopt and adapt resources to meet their students’ needs. The idea was kicked off with a successful trades OER day. Coast Mountain College has also introduced an incentive program through its library. The college’s energy is focused on enabling a strong uptake in OER. Tracey Woodburn is the lead on this project.

Research Fellow 2020–2021  

Gripping the Paddle with Both Hands: Embedding Indigenous Learning Approaches into Online Education 

Rob-Roy Douglas from Northern Lights College is looking at how Indigenous experiential and narrative learning can be integrated into the online education environment to improve student engagement and outcomes.

Effectively Moving Away from Traditional Proctored Exams in First-Year Physics Courses 

At the University of Northern British Columbia, Meghan Costello is researching how we can effectively move away from traditional proctored midterm and final exams in first-year physics courses to improve student motivation and understanding of the course material.

Time Investment Grants 2021 North 

Scott van Dyk and Annette Sorensen, both Business instructors at Coast Mountain College, were awarded the BCcampus Time Investment Grant to co-develop open materials that provide Indigenous content relevant to Business Law and Ethics courses. These materials will enable instructors to have the resources to incorporate appropriate Indigenous content and develop new resources as needed.

Melissa Fournier, Work Integrated Learning Coordinator at College of New Caledonia, will oversee the development of student work-readiness OER and look at how this material can be integrated to enable broad use. This work will support students in preparing for experiential learning opportunities through innovative approaches.

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