Open Education and Learning Design: Open Pedagogy in Praxis

Abstract

Beyond providing alternatives to traditional learning resources, there exists a gap in the literature in understanding how openness is impacting teaching and learning in higher education. This paper explores the ways in which educators describe how open education is impacting their pedagogical designs. Using a phenomenological approach with self-identifying open education practitioners, we explore how open educational practices (OEP) are being actualised in formal higher education in the context of British Columbia (BC), Canada. The findings suggest that OEP represent an emerging form of learning design, which draws from existing models of constructivist and networked pedagogy, while using the affordances of open tools and content to create and share learning in novel ways. Faculty members report finding ways to use open approaches and technologies to support and enable active learning experiences, present and share learners’ work in real-time, support formative feedback, peer review, and, ultimately, promote community-engaged coursework. By designing learning in this way, faculty members offer learners an opportunity to consider and practise developing themselves as public citizens, develop their knowledge and literacies for working appropriately with copyright and controlling access to their online contributions, while presenting options for extending some of those rights to others. Inviting learners to share their work more widely, demonstrates to them that their work has inherent value beyond the course and can be an opportunity for them to engage directly with their community.