Topic #4- Sharing Resources and Practicing ‘Open’

What do you think of the test? 

The four-part test is used to decide whether or not an approach qualifies as OER-enabled pedagogy (Wiley & Hilton, 2018). I think it is a good, simple way to break down the components of a lesson you’re engaging with and decide if it follows the open pedagogy. The more open-ended resources available, the more students will do better on their assignments (Wiley & Hilton, 2018). Using this type of test in a classroom setting will allow teachers to really think and decide if the approach they are taking benefits their students.

Do you have examples from your education that would pass all four parts? 

I think of all the blog posts I have done in this class and a couple of others and they would pass all four parts of the test.  I decided to break it down with the 4 questions below:

1. Are students asked to create new artifacts (essays, poems, videos, songs, etc.) or revise / remix existing OER?

Yes, I have created new artifacts in my case blog posts with multimodal components as well as revised my own blog during the showcase component which is an OER.

2. Does the new artifact have value beyond supporting the learning of its author? 

Yes, the blog posts are public so my peers, pod members, professor and anyone else on the web can read what I have written and hopefully learn something.

3. Are students invited to publicly share their new artifacts or revised/remixed OER? 

In my previous classes, including this one I was invited to have kept the blog public and have it on the class’s website for others to view online.

4. Are students invited to openly license their new artifacts or revised/remixed OER?

Yes, I was as my blog is openly licensed.

If you are planning to become a teacher, will you aim to design tasks that pass all four parts? Why or why not?

I think depending on what I am doing I will aim to design tasks that do pass all four parts. It is much harder if I were to teach younger grades but I could definitely incorporate them creating a song, or video, or even a digital drawing and ask parents for permission to post on a classroom website. This will allow other parents to go on and show their children which means the artifacts are supporting others learning (Wiley & Hilton, 2018) as well.

At the end of the article, there are suggestions for further research in this area. Do any of the proposed research questions catch your attention? 

1. “One of the questions that caught my attention was: will widespread adoption of OER enabled pedagogy spark dramatic improvements in learning?”

I feel like if there is a further study done on OER’s and more proof that there will be an immense improvement in learning then more teachers would incorporate OER’s.

2. “Do students who make their assignments publicly available demonstrate greater mastery of learning outcomes or show more enthusiasm for their work than students assigned traditional assessments? Why or why not?”

I feel like proving why students making assignments public and openly license their work will demonstrate greater mastery might be a bit of a challenge. Students may question why it is needed.

I think if researchers ask individuals if they find their peers’ work and other OERs like Quizlet beneficial? Then tell them that by posting their own work online, openly they are benefiting others as well and it becomes a shared community. 

Overall, I believe an OER- enabled pedagogy can be beneficial to especially higher education students. I think we still have a long way to come as professors are still unsure whether it is beneficial for them and their students to throw the textbooks aside and delve into the world of open-ended resources online.

Thank you to my pod members and Ryan for a great 4 weeks. Enjoy the last bit of summer we have left!

Reference:

Wiley, D. & Hilton, J. (2018). Defining OER-enabled Pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 19(4).