Beyond the savings
While there are substantial benefits to reducing or eliminating the associated costs of education, especially with open textbooks, the opportunities go far beyond the financial benefits. Open pedagogy and OER-enabled pedagogy (OEP) look at the practices that can be incubated and nurtured when we unlock access to learning, and investigates what students – and instructors – can do with it to improve the overall learning experience and outcomes.
Defining open pedagogy
Michael Paskevicius, Learning Technologies Application Developer at Vancouver Island University (VIU), has created a powerful definition for open pedagogy: “Teaching and learning practices where openness is enacted within all aspects of instructional practice; including the design of learning outcomes, the selection of teaching resources, and the planning of activities and assessment. OEP engage both faculty and students with the use and creation of OER, draw attention to the potential afforded by open licences, facilitate open peer-review, and support participatory student-directed projects.”
A community of knowledge
We are interested in creating classrooms and learning environments where students can be contributors to the exchange of knowledge, and not merely vessels completing disposable assignments and going through the motions of learning.
Join us as we work towards the evolution of open practices, making way for open pedagogy to influence students and learning across the province and around the world, and moving away from the static and hierarchical approaches of yesteryear’s classrooms to welcome the dynamic and obtainable methodologies that are the future of learning.
Educators and learners, administrators and technicians, whatever your role, if you are working to include open pedagogy or OER-enabled pedagogy in your institution, we are here to help.