OPEN 9600 – Assignment 2.4 – The Role of Policy In Fostering Open Education

I am now in my second elective and fourth course in KPU’s Professional Program in Open Education. I chose OPEN 9600: Open Ed Policy and Leadership because I am interested in how leadership and policy advance the Open Education movement. In this first assignment, we are asked to draw on examples from our experiences and support our writing with examples from the course content.

To date, my advancing Open efforts have been primarily focused on Open Educational Resources (OER) development, adaptation, and adoption while sprinkling seeds of other Open Educational Practices (OEP) and the pedagogies that underpin them. For example, co-creation with learners for assessment and the inclusion of learners’ voices in their curriculum via classroom learning resources. An equal amount of time has been spent gaining buy-in from multiple stakeholders for the inclusion of OER in their work. Most are interested in participating. The piece that is missing is pulling them all together into a collaborative effort.

When I started in the Open movement, there was, and frankly still is, a focus on equity through affordability, meaning that by providing free learning resources for the classroom, everyone has their resources the first day. No one is left behind because they cannot afford the commercial textbook. Multiple studies demonstrate that OER adoption increases retention, learner success, and the likelihood that learners will sign up for another Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) course (Open Education Group, 2020). This is important for learners, and the impacts can be quantified through textbook cost savings.

Equity through affordability is not enough to sustain the Open movement in the long term, and we risk losing the transformational benefits that engaging in open educational practices provides. Hodkings-Williams and Trotter’s (2018) view from a social justice lens suggest that the adoption of OER can be an “ameliorative” response making a remedial reform to an injustice (OER provides a free textbook to everyone) but to be truly transformational, a critical examination to analyze if unjust practices are reinforced in OER is needed. Moving beyond affordability and inviting diverse representation of stakeholders to critically reflect on open educational practice integration in classrooms and resources, is, in my view, an aspect that is needed for the long-term sustainability of OER, and a differentiator from commercialized learning resources. The challenge is it is not easy to quantify.

In my advocacy presentations for OER integration, I have noted a gap in bringing people together for collaboration. Initially, meetings were held with working groups, but due to time constraints, these groups were not nurtured in a way that might have led to advocacy for institutional Open policy sooner. Skidmore & Provida (2019) advocate for an institutional steering committee with members from varying departments to broaden impact. Cox & Trotter (2016) propose that institutional policy for open must consider the political, cultural, and context of an institution for OER efforts to advance. Drawing on change-management theory, Kotter (2012) proposes that changes in organizations require building a guiding coalition, forming a strategy, and then enlisting a group of people who will pursue that common goal. A step towards a formalized open policy requires bringing together diverse stakeholders into one working group to pursue this goal.

References:

Cox, G., & Trotter, H. (2016). Institutional Culture and OER Policy: How Structure, Culture, and Agency Mediate OER Policy Potential in South African Universities. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 17(5). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v17i5.2523

Hodkings-Williams & Trotter, H., (2018) A Social Justice Framework for Understanding Open Educational Resources and Practices in the Global South. Journal of Learning for Development, 5(3), 204-224.

Kotter, J.P. (2012) Leading Change. Harvard Business Review Press. ISBN 9781422186435

Open Education Group. (2020). The Review Project. Retrieved from Open Education Group: https://openedgroup.org/review

Skidmore, J.M. A Place for Policy: The Role of Policy in Supporting Open Educational Resources and Practices at Ontario’s Colleges and Universities. Retrieved from https://www.ecampusontario.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-08-07-skimore-oe-policy-report.pdf

This post is licensed CC-BY-NC-SA unless otherwise noted.

October 30, 2022October 30, 2022

6.3 Assignment Two: Applying A Critical Approach

Theory and Philosophy of Open Education (OPEN9100) Final Assignment Summary of Instructions:

Produce a list of design principles or key considerations (by drawing on course readings) that could support the adoption of Open Educational Practices (OEP) for more equitable approaches to teaching and learning.

Situating Myself

My set of key considerations is situated as a new administrator leading OER development, creating ongoing processes and resources to grow and guide OER creation at a higher-ed institution. For me, this includes Open Educational Practices (OEP) and, in the context of this assignment, focuses on open practices that can provide equitable approaches to learning and teaching.

Why Learning Before Teaching?

I use learning before teaching intentionally because long before I knew about constructivism and this approach to teaching, I always thought that the teacher is not the only person that can contribute to knowledge-making. For me, transformative learning occurs when the person named teacher/professor/instructor actively engages with the people named learners to co-construct meaning, learn from, and teach each other. Bali M. et al. (2020, para 6) propose that a constructivist approach ensures relevancy while fostering learning communities.

Key Considerations and Related Questions

Representation

My first two key considerations focus on Representation. For me, this means diverse perspectives are included by inviting the participants to OER work. Representation also applies to the content of OER material that goes beyond images and includes the representation of voices as active participants in OER development and processes. Veletsianos, G. (2020) argues that we can not assume that Open is inherently equitable and that we must scrutinize our practices, or we risk missing out on the equity benefits espoused by open advocates and, worse, may perpetuate inequities. Diversifying the content of OER to include representation of a mix of people supports equity in education, and it can be one example of Recognitive Justice (marginalized and underrepresented people are seen and legitimized) and Representational Justice (marginalized and underrepresented people speak for themselves) (Lambert S. & Czerniewicz, L., 2020).

Representation in participation in open initiatives
- What opportunities and resources are available to invite participants from under-represented and marginalized groups into OER/OEP initiatives?
- How do we identify and support the people who have been under-represented and marginalized so they can participate in a way that is meaningful to them?
Representation in OER adoption, adaptation, and creation
- When supporting the adoption of OER into courses, how do we support the labour of resource review to ensure multiple perspectives are represented in the course materials?
- When supporting the adaptation and creation of OER for course material, how do we embed (in our workflow) the inclusion of marginalized and underrepresented people?

Open Educational Practices: Open Sharing

My next key considerations focus on asking people to share openly. Cronin (2017) posits that it is important to support learners and faculty in navigating the tensions that open sharing has with privacy concerns. Singh (2015) suggests that we miss people’s perspectives when we do not have safe and inclusive spaces. It has been my own experience that it depends on the context when I decide when and how much I will share. I have witnessed the hesitancy of others to share what I perceive as fear of judgment. Still, I must continually scrutinize that perception because it is an assumption and is not the only reason people hesitate or do not share.

Assess the risk of open sharing
- What processes are in place or need to be put in place to address risks that open sharing may cause for people
Open is not fully open or fully closed.
- Have we created options for people to participate safely, and how will they and we know?
Has training been provided for people to make an informed decision about open sharing?
- Licensing training
- Social media training
- Time to evaluate what it means to share openly

The Digital Divide

Open Educational Resources (OER) are largely digital and often require internet access to utilize interactive components and a device to download or read online. When those options are not available, then access to a printer or printing company to make hard copies is needed. A large part of my work around OER has been ensuring learners have access to their learning material at the beginning of a course. Lambert’s (2018) example of OER being a form of Redistributive Justice ( providing learners with free educational resources when they may not have been able to afford them) aligns with my OER work. However, understanding that socio-economic conditions may preclude learners from accessing digital resources, even free ones, is another barrier for my consideration list.

How do we ensure offline options are available when people cannot access the internet and/or devices?
- Are print copies made available?
- Are downloads on devices made available?
- Are these alternative formats accessible?

References

Bali, M., Cronin, C., & Jhangiani, R. S. (2020). Framing Open Educational Practices from a Social Justice Perspective. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2020(1), 10. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/jime.565

Cronin, C. (2017) Open Education, Open Questions. Open at The Margins. https://press.rebus.community/openatthemargins/chapter/open-education-open-questions/

Lambert, S. and Czerniewicz, L., 2020. Approaches to Open Education and Social Justice Research. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2020(1), p.1. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/jime.584

Lambert, S. R. (2018). Changing our (Dis)Course : A Distinctive Social Justice Aligned Definition of Open Education. Journal of Learning for Development https://jl4d.org/index.php/ejl4d/article/view/290/334

singh, s. (2015) The Fallacy of Open. Open at The Margins. https://press.rebus.community/openatthemargins/chapter/the-fallacy-of-open/

Veletsianos, G, (2020). Open educational resources: expanding equity or reflecting and furthering inequities?. Education Tech Research Dev 69, 407–410 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09840-y

Licensed CC-BY-NC-SA unless otherwise indicated

Epilogue

This first course in the KPU Professional OPEN program has me looking forward to Open Educational Resources and Pedagogies (OPEN-9200) starting Monday. I wish to thank Irwin Devries for his thoughtful audio reflections, which solidified my learning. For my co-learners, thoughtful posts and prodding questions made me dig deeper in critically evaluating my assumptions about my work in OPEN.

March 4, 2021March 4, 2021

Share-Back Reflections on Cheggification and Open Pedagogy

I have always thought that students that cut corners and “cheat” do so out of desperation. I thought that if I can just support student’s learning then they won’t feel the need to cut corners. My recent awareness that there are hundreds of homework sites that essentially provide students with answers to assignments and tests was disappointing. I think that it was disappointing because is seemed to perpetuate the antagonistic relationship of teacher and student which seems counterintuitive to the supportive teacher that I aim to be. When I saw Dave Cormier’s invitation on Twitter to hear his CoOp students talk about their experiences with homework sites and how Open pedagogy could provide part of a solution…. well, I was in. The following reflection is my contribution to Conestoga College’s share-back session for #OEWeek 2021.

Themes from the Presentation

Student Perceptions

Student’s perceive that the faculty response to “homework sites” like Chegg has been to create assignments and tests that are more difficult, intensive, and time restricted. The thought being there will be no time to search out answers. This has resulted in a greater number of students going direct to Chegg for the answer than before. On the surface homework sites appear to provide help with homework by allowing students to verify their answers once they have completed their work. As one student presenter commented “co-students have completed their work but they want to make sure they got the answer correct so that their grades do not suffer”.

Chegg is expensive with multiple layers ranging from some limited free options to an expensive subscription. Subsequently, disadvantaging students without the means to pay for subscriptions. That being said there is nothing stopping someone with a subscription from sharing the answers with others and I learned today that there are hundreds of companies that do just that with varying fee structures.

I was surprised to learn that many publishers sold homework answers to Chegg. Read more about that in this article by Michael Feldstein.

Is Cheating a Faculty Construct?

Since information is readily available on the internet no longer does the faculty or the textbook hold all the answers exclusively. So, faculty respond by making the assessments harder and/or restricted by time. Dave Cormier posed the notion that cheating may be a faculty construct because cheating only happens when faculty withhold the answer. Faculty may construct the notion of cheating by telling students that they can’t see the answer that they must memorize the answer to be regurgitated on a test and then be judged competent or not. By the time a student reaches Higher Ed they believe that this is how “school” works.

In this current way of responding to homework sites faculty are punishing all students even those students who do not want to rely on these types of sites, students who want to engage in their own learning and complete their own work. The term used in today’s presentation was The Assessment Stick. Meaning using the assessment as an extrinsic motivator or worse as a type of punishment.

How Do We Stop Cheating Behaviours?

So the question turned to how than can we stop cheating? The response was faculty need to treat students like the professionals that they are training to be. Faculty need to show students the how and why we choose to layout the course the way that we do. So, that we can prepare students for the occupation that they are training and educating for. We need to inspire intrinsic motivation for completing course work.

Deconstruct our goals for the course, consider why we give students assignments and for what purpose? This requires a degree of self-reflection to really unpack the why and what for in how we prepare courses and assessments. Prepare assignments that introduce students to the work field, habits expected in the work field, and practical context for learning. .

Deconstruct with students their motivations and expectations and re-establish the social contract with students at the beginning of the course. Talk with the student about goals for learning and expectations, agree to those goals and then hold for accountability.

Provide iterative assignments with formative feedback check-ins. Avoid well structured problems and instead provide ill-structured problems. Ill-structured problems are those that are not directly measurable, do not have a solution or clear definition and/or only work on part of the problem. The pushback is that this is difficult in classes with large numbers and will be difficult to manage. The question posed back was do you think what we do know works? Isn’t it always difficult in classes with large numbers?

How Can OPEN Pedagogy Help?

Open Authored Textbooks introduce students to someone doing the work in the field. The Open texts are often networked so opportunities exist for students to make connections in the field of knowledge with a variety of perspectives. Cormier (2021) suggested that we allow students the space to “go down the rabbit holes” with their curiosity subsequently building intrinsic motivation . Click here to learn how to use Wikipedia games for intrinsic motivation.

Open Pedagogy allows for student choice in assignments, be open to how students choose to learn and pick what they want to explore. This doesn’t mean they can just study whatever they want. It requires a collaborative discussion between faculty and student to ensure alignment with the outcomes and goals for the course.

Build Trust with students by deconstructing the power relationships between faculty and student and change from a combative and antagonistic relationship to a trust relationship. Expect pushback, remember students have been doing “school” for many years and have been conditioned to expect “school” experiences in a particular way.

Final Thoughts….

A concern I heard today and one I hear often within my own teaching environment. What do we do about students who are not motivated by a desire to work in this field. A student presenter responded with but many students do care and are invested in their learning what about us? Cormier, suggested that a core value is to design courses and assessments for the student who does care. This is a core value that I share and another reason that I believe open educational practices is the way forward.

“A Core Value to Design Assessments for the Students Who Do Care” (Cormier, 2021).