Read two short web pages on open pedagogy: The Values of Open Pedagogy and Renewable assignments: Student work adding value to the world. As you’re reading, consider these questions:
- Which aspects of open pedagogy most resonate with you and your teaching values?
- How might you enact these aspects of open pedagogy in your course?
Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below. Feel free to reply to your colleagues’ comments.
20 thoughts on “Open Pedagogy”
Giving students choice is important to me.
I see the efficacy of connecting assignments to real-world work even though I am not sure I agree with that as a primary mode of what I think is the main goal of an education, which is learning to think. I have taught vocational skills for a long time and while in my experience it is definitely possible to connect the learning of skills to the process of learning critical thinking, they are by no means integrally connected. Therefore, I see danger in such an approach as a sole means of connecting with students academically. That said, as I state above, I hold it as a very valuable tool.
The idea of students adding knowledge to the world goes right in line with my commitment in my teaching to instilling the need for service, something I think we all must give in some form. This process of service does many things; it creates agency and ownership, important components of a complete education; it creates community and connection — otherwise do the work if not to connect to the wider world? I love the idea that students held to the higher standard of contributing to others vs simply punching their own ticket will achieve more. I also believe that, in addition to structuring a classroom in an Anti-Racist, open manner, the best thing you can do to knock down barriers is to increase a sense of competence in your students that they can tackle the “real world”. Authentic, renewable, real-world assignments seem to offer a lot on that front. I look forward to exploring these ideas for myself and seeing how they manifest in my classroom.
It’s so interesting to learn this term, “disposable assignments.” I’ve had a similar terms which I’ve been using for years, I call such work “busy work.” As in, work that is assigned simply for the sake of having assigned something and to have something to grade. As a parent I encounter these types of assignments a lot. At one of my child’s schools daily homework was required, and the result was such “busy work” which not only didn’t add value to the world, but didn’t add value to the child’s education and whose only purpose was the fact that homework was assigned which must translate to being a rigorous class.
As a teacher, I have been careful not to assign such type of work because of my awareness of students time constraints as well as emotional/psychological well-being. Why assign something when there is no tangible benefit to the student? I think this is why I am so interested in ungrading; and while ungrading may seem like a drastic leap, a great first step is to really question whether our assignments are benefiting students, if so, how? Are assignments not only authentic, but also relevant is another great question to ask oneself.
One of the reasons that Open Pedagogy is so appealing is not only due to the access it offers, but the fact that it provides a platform for students to become knowledge creators themselves. Rather than simply consuming what we provide them, students have the opportunity to veer away from disposable assignments and produce work that is relevant, engaging, and provides value to the world (or to the community that the students chooses to share it with).
On a side note, I was very interested to learn that the definition of Open Pedagogy is evolving based on an ongoing conversation. I think that this is just wonderful and really embodies what “open” means. In other words, what is being preached is being practiced.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply Angela. Yes, the idea of being knowledge creators is important for open pedagogy, right? I need to think about this aspect more.
The aspects of open pedagogy that resonated with me were the community and connection and the access and equity. I believe in developing communication in every aspect of teaching and i would like to implement within my syllabus a statement that will inform all students as to the professionalism as well as respect for each and every class member that sits in attendance. In thinking on how to possibly implement an activity to get to know and understand my students better as to their learning process, i am in thoughts of a questionaire of how they usually retain information outside of the classroom as well as how they think they would best learn within my class as to the topics we will be discussing.
Access leads to agency. Also important is that texts are culturally relevant and stimulating; students want to speak up, feel driven to do so, in fact. This is fostered and facilitated in a very respectful, safe environment where students feel free to both speak their truths and disagree – always respectfully.
My students are encouraged to also create “learning objects” in terms of producing their own videos about texts of their own choosing.
I love the idea of student work “adding value to the world.” Disposable assignments can be valuable here and there, to allow students to practice a given skill, but I’d like to move more towards open pedagogy assignments for larger course projects. All the aspects of open pedagogy sound exciting and important to me as an educator: agency and ownership, access and equity, community and connection, and opportunity and risk. By creating meaningful assignments, students take ownership of course materials; open pedagogy assignments promote access and equity because everyone starts at the same place; students connect with one another by seeing and responding to classmates’ ideas and work; and open pedagogy assignments challenge students to create something that has value outside of college.
In my critical thinking course, students can write a letter to a politician, or a blog post, or present their argument as a visual arts project, or record a podcast, instead of writing an argumentative essay. After two semesters of implementing this assignment, I think I need to provide more examples, resources and hands-on practice regarding the audience piece here–one student wrote a letter to President Biden arguing for gun reform, but the letter is simply addressed to Biden, and the content reads like an argumentative essay. The challenge is: how to guide students to truly consider their audience, to address their audience in an authentic way? Of course, maling the letter is one way to encourage making a contribution to the real world. But before the letter is mailed, I’d like students to engage with their intended audience more.
Everything we teach needs to be reinforced and I think that’s the crux of this philosophy. In my business classes, there are a lot of formulas students need to learn and utilize. They need to practice applying them, that’s going to lead to disposable work, but they should retain the concepts behind the math and the thought process that goes along with it.
One thing I try to do and should probably make more of an effort to do is have the students present their solutions to the problems to the entire class to reinforce what they’ve learned. Or I could have them work with a peer to discuss their errors. These days I usually just correct their assignments, give them feedback, and that’s that. I should be following up with them to make sure they understand their errors. That’s when the learning happens. These articles only confirm my suspicion that some students don’t bother to review my corrections of their work. There’s always more I can do.
I didn’t quite make the connection between the values of open pedagogy and open pedagogy. In other words, it seemed that those valued don’t require an open forum, that we can house these values in a traditional closed classroom. Even though I’m taking this course, count me as an open pedagogy skeptic. However, the “Renewable assignments” page did spark my interest. I see how renewable assignments mesh with open pedagogy and that both can enhance the other. But my one big skeptical question is still hanging out: Do people really reach others through open pedagogy? Are people really perusing the web and finding all these renewable assignments and benefiting from them?
I have a hard time deciding between “Community and Connection” and “Agency and Ownership” when choosing the aspect of open pedagogy that most resonate with me. A big part of how I teach rests on my desire to encourage students to see the value in being a part of a community and to foster their agency/ sense of personhood. I want students who are just as willing to form group chats outside of class and help their classmates during class as they are to question me and the materials we look at.
Right now I frequently ask “What questions do you have?” and spend the early parts of the class noting their concerns or queries so that I can tailor the lesson to what they feel like they need to know more about. I also use a Google Poll to get their anonymous feedback at the end of each unit. I use this to tweak the class as much as I can to make it more suitable to what they think they need or would like. If I can’t change something, I explain why and we discuss it.
What I would like to try in the future is an assignment that they upload on OL that we then use as a class. Maybe they can make posters to represent their idea of the writing process…. Or they could use Google Docs to write a collaborative essay that they then present to the class including a describing their process and the basic parts of the essay (What is their thesis and what are their main points? How did they come up with these? How does the thesis answer the assignment and how does each body paragraph support this thesis? What did they struggle with? What question(s) about/ aspects of the draft would they like us to consider more closely as we peer review?)
I believe having all materials available for free is the first step in eliminating barriers for students and making the playing field equal. I also give all dates and assignments at the beginning of the course, including opening up all discussion boards, so that they have agency in determining when they wish to engage and complete assignments. They are allowed to select the subject of their research paper within the parameters of the English Department’s guidelines. Recently, I have tried giving them the option of submitting images instead of comments on Discussion Board. That seemed to help some students tap into artistic talents and in turn freed them from the feeling that what they were writing was not expressing what they felt. I used to do these exercises in the classroom. They take the pressure off and help students relax and they have fun.
Four words that summarize my approach to students:
@Trust your own Voice
Access and Equity are two aspects that motivated me to create OER courses. Book prices are too damn high. Creating authentic student collaboration also means that the course could be opened to French speaking students that are not part of the course but would be interested in collaborating with my students.
I like the idea of renewable assignments and I will think about how to apply this concept to my course. The most authentic assignments in my classes are videos which students use to communicate with each other, even though the course is async.
The primary value in teaching philosophy is to make students to realize their identity through intersubjectivity. Open pedagogy facilitates my teaching by offering equal access for students to different ‘actors’ and thinkers in history and contemporary space. I also find the teaching oriented on application of studied concepts to the real world is indispensable for understanding of the studied material and self-understanding. The concepts make sense only in their actualization and concretization.
I am all for students having access and equity, agency and ownership, and opportunity and in their learning experiences. Actually, developing empathy and nurturing curiosity are also key values I would hope to develop in my classes. As far as creating “renewable” assignments as compared to “disposable” ones, I think that “renewable” sounds good-“having students do authentic assignments that contribute to real world contexts”. But I couldn’t help but think that some “disposable” work does help to build skills and also does not always lead to a dead end. This reminds me of the creative process, for example. An artist (painter-I’ve been reading a monograph about Philip Guston) may spend a lot of time on one painting, and in the end, they just throw it out! Still, their process will lead to the creation of something new in the future.
The notion of ‘authentic renewability’ resonates most for me. That said, i’d probably use different terms for what is described in the post, as these and some of the other terminology in ‘Renewable assignments’ could be taken to imply pedagocical values that i do not share.
To enact this aspect of open pedagogy, i might include an invitation for students to share certain work on a public blog, perhaps formatted in accordance with the guidelines of a relevant journal or other publication. Another possible approach would be to encourage group work toward the publication of a collection of keywords, to be used by future students &/or whoever else may be interested.
I like that students are given responsibility for their own learning by becoming knowledge creators and teaching others. I plan to have my students create Jeopardy questions about art history that can be used in review games by them and future students throughout the semester. Students will also have an assignment where they introduce art objects from their cultures written in an art historical format. This assignment will eventually be used to shore up the knowledge gap in under-represented cultures in my own modules.
What resonated with me the most is Danica Savonick’s blog article, “Teaching Through Publishing: Scholarly Journal Article as Collaborative Final Project (a How To Guide).” When my students write a research paper in my class, I remind them that they too are now creating a scholarly article of sorts. This allows them to see that what they are creating in their research paper is an “authentic assignment.” I want my students to leave my class knowing that they have created something and not just turned in an assignment. Their essays are *their* own arguments, ideas, philosophies and their view of the world.
While the concept of renewable vs. disposable assignments is something I’m familiar with, I haven’t had the vocabulary to support the idea; and what a brilliant concept it is! Certain aspects of the musical world evolve quickly, while others remain rather conservative. It’s important that in an ever changing landscape that we as instructors keep up! Engaging students though renewable and authentic assignments is a way to ensure that they are ready to take “the next step,” it’s also a way to help us stay current. The world of music I entered into is already quite different than the one our students will encounter.
Cultural identity, authenticity, equity and creativity are aspects of open pedagogy that resonate the most with my current teaching practice. They enrich the class through diversity of thought processes, providing awareness about different cultures and ways of examining the same concepts. Through the creativity they engage student participation. The given file contains a picture of me with Ndebele dolls created by students based on the biographies of Nigerian Women in Agricultural Research and Development who inspired them.