According to Mays’ article, open pedagogy can be interpreted as “a site of praxis” where “theories about learning, teaching, technology, and social justice enter into a conversation with each other and inform the development of educational practices and structures” (Mays, 2017).

In my own understanding and reflection, open pedagogy in the context of college education requests active and meaningful learning which is accomplished by both parties of students and educators. For instance, if an instructor sets up group discussion and all students actively participate in group discussion, students’ interpersonal skills and speaking skills would enhance, thus this scenario fulfills open pedagogy. Additionally, open pedagogy ought to focus on students’ long-term growth rather than short-term exam performance. For instance, if a history professor let his students memorize tremendous historical facts from textbook over only one night only, this assignment has no benefits to students as this professor ignores the importance in comprehension skills and problem-solving skills which are valued highly in students’ long-term growth.

 

OER-enabled pedagogy helps improve the quality of open pedagogy. According to Wiley and Hilton’ paper from topic #4, OER-enabled pedagogy could be defined as the set of teaching and learning practice with compulsory participation of 5R, which are retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute (Wiley & Hilton, 2018). One representative instance in which OER-enabled pedagogy improves of open pedagogy is free open textbook. Traditional textbooks add heavily financial burdens on students, thus lowering students’ learning freedom, which belongs to one of the three cores of open pedagogy. Free open textbooks are helpful in making students’ learning efficient and active. Another example of OER-enabled pedagogy is renewable-assignments. In the traditional learning mode, students are usually required to do disposable assignments, which become some pieces of trash after one semester ends. Because of this very short duration of being valuable, disposable assignments give no benefits to three parties of current students, future students, and educators. The birth of renewable assignment helps alleviate the shortcomings of disposable assignments. It matters to open pedagogy, as development of renewable assignments signifies implicitly a learning philosophy in which collective efforts may be more active and efficient than one individual’s effort.

 

 

 

 

Reference

 

Mays, E. (Ed.). (2017). A guide to making open textbooks with students. Rebus Community.

 

Wiley, D. & Hilton, J. (2018). Defining OER-enabled Pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 19(4).