As we march further into the Spring semester at the University of Hawai’i, we’re recapping our participation in Open Education Week celebration from March 8th. There were more wonderful conversations, ideas, and discussions had than can be captured in a single blog post, but that shouldn’t stop us from sharing some of the event’s highlights.
Our invited keynote speaker and workshop facilitator Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani opened with a talk titled Serving Social Justice and Pedagogical Innovation with Open Educational Practices. Rajiv walked the audience through the realities of higher education in terms of access and equity, asking us to consider how existing power structures reinforce inequalities for students. Open Educational Resources (OER) and related “open practices” can not only lower and eliminate materials costs for our students, but can also provide more meaningful, engaging learning experiences when a shift is made towards openness. Dr. Jhangiani reminded us how many faculty have become accustomed to “bending” our courses to align with an existing publisher textbook, whereas OER offer faculty the ability to customize the content to fit the course — representing a new layer of academic freedom.
The keynote presentation was followed by a workshop on Open Pedagogy, focusing on helping faculty and instructors (re)design assignments that leverage the openness of OER. Examples offered by Rajiv were medical student contributions to Wikipedia articles, collaborative student curation and annotation of public domain texts, and more. But instead of prescribing lesson plans and strategies, participants were asked to examine their existing learning activities and assessments to see where openness could be woven into them to create re-useful assignments that could contribute to something larger or at the very least offer students the opportunity to showcase their skills to a broader audience in a way that lives on.
The transition period for the day included a lunchtime meet-and-greet with faculty and instructors who received OER grants through the UHM Outreach College last year and have been working on adopting, adapting, and creating OER for their students. Cross-pollination occurred as we had hoped, and many of the grantees formed professional bonds around their changing practice. For many, this is only the beginning of their journey towards open practices that lower barriers, improve access, and do more for their students.
The event came to a close with a panel of four faculty that were willing to share their experiences in the OER adoption process. Participants included Deborah Halbert (Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs), Alison Nugent (Assistant Professor, Atmospheric Science), Marie Kainoa Fialkowski Revilla (Assistant Professor, Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences) and Malia Lau Kong (Associate Professor, History Department, Windward Community College). Courses being converted to OER often undergo a “refresh” process through which the course outcomes, assessments, support materials and other errata are reviewed as an expensive textbook is replaced with an open, free one. Moderated by Outreach College Dean Bill Chismar, the panelists responded to a series of questions about the realities of their adoptions and OER development. The freedom for faculty to adapt or customize the OER materials to their teaching and their students was highlighted, as was the need for technical support throughout the adoption process. Marie Kainoa Fialkowski Revilla also pointed out how OER adoptions (like the one she leads) benefit from a team effort made up of faculty, students, and instructors — direct collaboration involving many stakeholders.
Video of the keynote presentation and faculty panel can be viewed here:
Pictures from the day’s sessions are available here.
Mahalo to all who participated!
