The CoLab sent two of our current Open Track participants from the Cluster Pedagogy Learning Community, Environmental Science professor Lisa Doner and Nursing professor Kerriann Reynolds, to this year’s Open Education Conference in Phoenix this past October. (CoLab Affiliate Hannah Davidson, an OER Research Fellow, also attended!) Here are are their on-the-fly takeaways that they jotted down as they were finishing the event:
From Kerri:
- Understanding our learners assists teachers to construct meaningful OER
- Student agency in OPEN is key
- Just In Time Teaching can make OPEN personal and engaging (Happy to discuss JITT)
- Improving post-secondary educational practices is a team sport- all members including teachers and students
- Communication with students can help OER be more successful
- OER permits customized learning
- Learners engage when it is personal
- OER is less boring ?
- First class day access (us making to available AND students interacting with material) has massive positive impacts in course success
- There are interesting long-term impacts of student debt and future success, correlating social justice to OER
- Students want OER with writing clarity, real life examples and visually appealing with interesting “hooks”
From Lisa:
Similar takeaways but also OER can enable programs struggling with reduced faculty coverage by providing exchangeable content to be included as modules in existing courses. And courses that currently act as barriers to graduation can be supplemented (or replaced) by providing online content that prepares and assesses student competency prior to their taking those courses. Finally, talked to a lot of the vendors about the form and utility of the content they package. Even Norton, a traditional textbook publisher, is developing around online free access to some materials.
If you are interested in adopting OER in your courses at Plymouth state, check out our grants to support your efforts, or consider applying to the Cluster Pedagogy Learning Community for comprehensive year-round support as you develop your plans!
