Open Pedagogy
Openly-licensed resources allow educators to devise assignments and redesign courses in ways unavailable to them when using traditionally copyrighted resources. Not only do instructors gain the ability to edit and improve upon the texts they assign, customizing them to perfectly suit the needs of the course, but students can interact with the texts in new ways as well. Exemplary student work from each semester can be added to new editions of the text which will be used by future classes. Students can help improve the quality of materials by suggesting new examples, or keeping facts up to date.
Open pedagogy is the practice of engaging with students as creators of information rather than simply consumers of it. It’s a form of experiential learning in which students demonstrate understanding through the act of creation. Traditional education may view students as vessels to be filled, but open pedagogy envisions them as active participants in the learning process.
Watch: A short SPARC Leadership Video with Robin DeRosa
Read: One of the case studies in Ch. II: Project Ideas & Case Studies from A Guide to Making Open Textbooks With Students, edited by Elizabeth Mays (optional)
Attribution
This module was created by Ching-Jung Chen. Portions of the content were adapted from:
- Open Education Primer from SPARC Open Education Leadership Program, licensed under CC BY 4.0
- Piloting Faculty OER Grant Programs – A Practical Guide for Librarians by Christopher A. Barnes, a 2017-2018 SPARC Open Education Leadership Fellow.
