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Open Pedagogy

In his blog post, What is Open Pedagogy, David Wiley claims that "there are much bigger victories to be won with openness" than cost savings alone. He goes on to compare using OER as a direct replacement for traditional textbooks to driving an airplane as one would a car. (Wiley) His point is that open educational resources enable a type of pedagogy prohibited by traditional textbooks and their accompanying teaching techniques. Related to cost savings is the digital nature of OER and that they can be distributed without the overhead costs associated with printing and shipping physical resources. Open educational resources have the potential to reach students, hobbyists, even professionals who might not be affiliated with an academic institution.  These and those to follow are considerations to be made in the process of adopting open educational resources.  OER enables innovative pedagogy beyond cost savings.

Open pedagogy gives students the opportunity to demonstrate learning in ways that contribute to the intellectual commons and in ways that have the potential to serve them in the future. Examples of open pedagogy might take the form of contributing to Wikipedia, creating an anthology and writing textbook chapters.  Lab exercises might be opened up by asking students to keep electronic notes and hosting them on the web such that they might be returned to in the future or by others for reference.  For classes that are taught time and time again, instructors might need to remain creative such that students do not duplicate the work done by those who have come before them. The point is that assignments should not be disposable or exercises for the sake of exercise. Students are capable, budding professionals and as such they should be given assignments they are proud to have seen by others. Giving students meaningful assignments that are showcased in platforms that make students' work potentially visible to future employers, graduate school admissions officers and others gives meaning to a students' work and might encourage them to take seriously what they otherwise might have viewed as "going through the motions."

Wiley, David. “Open Pedagogy.” Opencontent.org, 19 Nov. 2017, opencontent.org/blog/archives/2975.

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