Open Educational Practices

#OEP

Catherine Cronin

#OpenMed webinar 5th December 2017

Image: Joshua Tree National Park (Flickr, public domain)

Catherine Cronin

@catherinecronin catherinecronin.net

CELT, National University of Ireland, Galway

Le spectre de la rose Jerome Robbins Dance Division

from the New York Public Library (public domain)

To hope is to give

yourself to the future,

and that commitment

to the future

makes the present

inhabitable.

Rebecca Solnit (2004)

Hope in the Dark

“

networked

educators

networked

students

Physical

Spaces

Bounded

Online

Spaces

Open

Online

Spaces

Image: CC BY-SA 2.0 Catherine Cronin, built on Networked Teacher image CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Alec Couros

higher education

I began with a question:

In academic settings in which the use of OEP is

not required, requested, expected, or

specifically supported, why do some educators,

and not others, choose to use OEP?

(...and then what happens?)

Openness and praxis:

Exploring the use of

open educational practices (OEP)

in higher education

4 years later,

completing my PhD research

• Open educational practices (OEP)(Beetham et al., 2012; Ehlers, 2011; Geser, 2007; Hodgkinson-Williams, 2014 )

• Open teaching(Couros, 2010; Couros & Hildebrandt, 2016)

• Open pedagogy (DeRosa & Robison, 2017; Hegarty, 2015; Weller, 2014)

• Critical (digital) pedagogy(Farrow, 2016; Rosen & Smale, 2015; Stommel, 2014)

• Open scholarship(Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012b; Weller, 2011)

• Networked participatory scholarship (Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012a; Stewart, 2015)

literature: OEP and related concepts

Open Educational Practices (OEP)

Using/reusing/

creating

OER

Collaborative, learner-

centred practices employing

social & participatory

technologies for interaction,

peer-learning, knowledge

creation & sharing, and

empowerment of learners

and also: open learning, open publishing, use of open tools

(Beetham et al., 2012; Czerniewicz et al., 2016; Ehlers, 2011; Geser, 2007; Hodgkinson-Williams, 2014)

OER

open pedagogy

An important question becomes not simply whether

education is more or less open, but what forms of

openness are worthwhile and for whom;

openness alone is not an educational virtue.

Richard Edwards (2015)

“

critical approaches to openness

A roaming autodidact is a self-motivated, able learner that is

simultaneously embedded in technocratic futures and

disembedded from place, cultural, history, and markets...

As a result of designing for the roaming autodidact, we end up

with a platform that understands learners as white and male,

measuring learners’ task efficiencies against an unarticulated

norm of western male whiteness.

“

Tressie McMillan Cottom (2015)

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

1. In what ways do academic staff use OEP for teaching?

2. Why do/don’t academic staff use OEP for teaching?

3. What practices, values and/or strategies are shared by open

educators, if any?

RESEARCH SETTING:

One higher education institution in Ireland, without OER/OEP policy.

RESEARCH APPROACH:

Interpretivist, critical, empirical

METHODOLOGY/METHODS:

Constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014); semi-structured

interviews with 19 members of academic staff across multiple

disciplines & all ranges of practice – plus a broader survey.

research study

Image: CC0 photo by Saksham Gangwar

Institutional, role-based identity DIGITAL IDENTITY Open, networked, ‘Resident’

identity

Not using social media, or

personal use onlyDIGITAL NETWORKING Using social media personally

& professionally

Using VLE & email only DIGITAL TOOLS FOR

TEACHING

Using VLE & email

as well as open tools & social

media

Not intentionally using OER OER Intentionally using OER

less open more open

i) digital practices

Institutional, role-based identity DIGITAL IDENTITY Open, networked, ‘Resident’

identity

Not using social media, or

personal use onlyDIGITAL NETWORKING Using social media personally

& professionally

Using VLE & email only DIGITAL TOOLS FOR

TEACHING

Using VLE & email

as well as open tools & social

media

Not intentionally using OER OER Intentionally using OER

less open more open

i) digital practices

Using OEP

ii) categories related to OEP

Strong attachment to privacy,

focus on risksPRIVACY Balancing privacy & openness,

valuing both

Using ‘digital natives’ discourse DIGITAL LITERACIES Developing digital literacies

(self & students)

Valuing knowledge/information

transferPHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING

& LEARNING

Valuing social learning

Accepting traditional teaching

role expectationsCONCEPTION OF

SELF AS TEACHER

Challenging traditional

teaching role expectations

less open more open

ii) categories related to OEP

Strong attachment to privacy,

focus on risksPRIVACY Balancing privacy & openness,

valuing both

Using ‘digital natives’ discourse DIGITAL LITERACIES Developing digital literacies

(self & students)

Valuing knowledge/information

transferPHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING

& LEARNING

Valuing social learning

Accepting traditional teaching

role expectationsCONCEPTION OF

SELF AS TEACHER

Challenging traditional

teaching role expectations

less open more open

Dimensions shared

by open educators(i.e. those using OEP)

Balancing

privacy and openness

Developing

digital literacies

Valuing

social learning

Challenging traditional

teaching role expectations

inner circle(2 dimensions)

Networked

Individuals

both circles(4 dimensions)

Networked

Educators

4 dimensions shared by open educators

Balancing privacy & openness

Image: CC BY 2.0 woodleywonderworks

Balancing privacy and openness

will I share openly?

whom will I share with? (context collapse)

who will I share as? (digital identity)

will I share this?

MACRO

MESO

MICRO

NANO

Practicing openness is:

complex

personal

contextual

continually negotiated

Open Educational Practices (OEP)

Using/reusing/

creating

OER

Collaborative, learner-

centred practices employing

social & participatory

technologies for interaction,

peer-learning, knowledge

creation & sharing, and

empowerment of learners

OER

open pedagogywell-established link

Open Educational Practices (OEP)

Using/reusing/

creating

OER

Collaborative, learner-

centred practices employing

social & participatory

technologies for interaction,

peer-learning, knowledge

creation & sharing, and

empowerment of learners

OER

open pedagogy

emerging in situated studies of OER/OEP

well-established link

this study: Cronin, 2017

see also Beetham et al., 2012; Czerniewicz et al., 2016, 2017

We must rebuild institutions that value humans’

minds and lives and integrity and safety.

Audrey Watters (2017)

“

Image: CC BY-NC 2.0 carnagenyc

Thank You!

Catherine Cronin

@catherinecronin

catherinecronin.net

Le spectre de la rose Jerome Robbins Dance Division

from the New York Public Library (public domain)

All of the references cites in this presentation,

and a fuller discussion of the research findings

can be found in the following paper:

Cronin, C. (2017). Openness and praxis:

Exploring the use of open educational practices in higher education.

The International Review of Research in Open & Distributed Learning, 18(5).