Open Teaching: Difference between revisions

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Also used in the competing sense: '''= courses that allow external access and participation by non-registered students'''. See: [[Open Lessons]]
Also used in the competing sense: '''= courses that allow external access and participation by non-registered students'''. See: [[Open Lessons]]
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=Description=
=Description=


"What is the next step in this progression of openness? If the content is free and the papers, or journal articles are free, then what comes next? I think the next dramatic step…wait, better…LEAP forward will come when a university steps up and offers what I’m tentatively calling OpenTeach.  
A working definition by Alec Couros:
 
"Open teaching is described as the facilitation of learning experiences that are open, transparent, collaborative, and social. Open teachers are advocates of a free and open knowledge society, and support their students in the critical consumption, production, connection, and synthesis of knowledge through the shared development of learning networks.
 
 
Typical activities of open teachers may include some or all of the following:
 
* Advocacy and use of free and/or open source tools and software wherever possible and beneficial to student learning;
   
* Integration of free and open content and media in teaching and learning;
   
* Promotion of copyleft content licenses for student content production/publication/dissemination;
   
* Facilitation of student understanding regarding copyright law (e.g., fair use/fair dealing, copyleft/copyright);
   
* Facilitation and distributed scaffolding of student personal learning networks for collaborative and sustained learning;
   
* Development of learning environments that are reflective, responsive, student-centred, and that incorporate a diverse array of instructional and learning strategies;
   
* Modeling of openness, transparency, connectedness, and responsible copyright/copyleft use and licensing; and,
   
* Advocacy for the participation and development of collaborative gift cultures in education and society."
(http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/1335)


OpenTeach empowers professors to teach others for FREE. It enables them to step outside of the boundaries of their university and teach other students, hopefully less privileged, for free. I think this step is coming and I look very forward to that day arriving. Imagine if people could take courses from some of the most brilliant people on the planet. Imagine if these professors were supported by their institutions (given actual faculty loading) to teach students that are not a part of their institution. Imagine the amount of goodwill that this would provide for the bold institution that embraced this concept."
(http://nixty.com/blog/2008/05/18/opencourseware-openaccessopenteach/)


=Example=
=Discussion=


"a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas hopes to try to offer even more of his course to a wider audience this fall by allowing outsiders to participate in course discussions online.
Alec Couros:


“Serious, you can just take this class for free,” wrote the professor, David Parry, an assistant professor of emerging media and communications at the university, on a post on his blog AcademHack. The course is a graduate seminar on “Networked Knowledge,and Mr. Parry had already planned to make recordings of class sessions available online. But he’s now offering to hold a weekly online discussion group by video chat for those tuning in remotely as well. “Think of it as a more formalized reading group,” he said.
"Through the guiding principles of open teaching, students are able to gain requisite skills, self-efficacy, and knowledge as they develop their own personal learning networks (PLNs). Educators guide the process using their own PLNs, with a variety of teaching/learning experiences, and via (distributed) scaffolding. Knowledge is negotiated, managed, and exchanged. A gift economy may be developed through the paying-forward of interactions and meaningful collaborations.
Those auditing the course who aren’t enrolled won’t get any credit, though. “The knowledge is free, the degree will cost you money,” he wrote."
(http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3233/professor-proposes-taking-open-education-beyond-posting-course-materials?)


In the digital and rich-media environment, educators may also take on different roles, metaphors that extend beyond “sage on the stage”, “guide on the side”, etc. The “network sherpa” (source?) may be a suitable metaphor to describe these pedagogical processes.


=More Information=
This metaphor projects the role of teacher as one who “knows the terrain”, helps to guide students around obstacles, but who is also led by student interests, objectives, and knowledge. The terrain in this case consists of the development of media literacy (critique & awareness), social networks (connections), and connected/connective knowledge.


#3 more examples at http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3349/more-open-teaching-courses-and-what-they-could-mean-for-colleges
As with any models/images/diagrams/metaphors there are always limitations and (outright) flaws. Yet, I present these three pieces (i.e., working definition of open teaching, thinning the walls, network sherpa) in hope that it will lead us to a discussion on some of the perceived changes in teaching & learning in the wider scope of education"
(http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/1335)





Revision as of 10:31, 23 February 2009

Also used in the competing sense: = courses that allow external access and participation by non-registered students. See: Open Lessons


Description

A working definition by Alec Couros:

"Open teaching is described as the facilitation of learning experiences that are open, transparent, collaborative, and social. Open teachers are advocates of a free and open knowledge society, and support their students in the critical consumption, production, connection, and synthesis of knowledge through the shared development of learning networks.


Typical activities of open teachers may include some or all of the following:

  • Advocacy and use of free and/or open source tools and software wherever possible and beneficial to student learning;
  • Integration of free and open content and media in teaching and learning;
  • Promotion of copyleft content licenses for student content production/publication/dissemination;
  • Facilitation of student understanding regarding copyright law (e.g., fair use/fair dealing, copyleft/copyright);
  • Facilitation and distributed scaffolding of student personal learning networks for collaborative and sustained learning;
  • Development of learning environments that are reflective, responsive, student-centred, and that incorporate a diverse array of instructional and learning strategies;
  • Modeling of openness, transparency, connectedness, and responsible copyright/copyleft use and licensing; and,
  • Advocacy for the participation and development of collaborative gift cultures in education and society."

(http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/1335)


Discussion

Alec Couros:

"Through the guiding principles of open teaching, students are able to gain requisite skills, self-efficacy, and knowledge as they develop their own personal learning networks (PLNs). Educators guide the process using their own PLNs, with a variety of teaching/learning experiences, and via (distributed) scaffolding. Knowledge is negotiated, managed, and exchanged. A gift economy may be developed through the paying-forward of interactions and meaningful collaborations.

In the digital and rich-media environment, educators may also take on different roles, metaphors that extend beyond “sage on the stage”, “guide on the side”, etc. The “network sherpa” (source?) may be a suitable metaphor to describe these pedagogical processes.

This metaphor projects the role of teacher as one who “knows the terrain”, helps to guide students around obstacles, but who is also led by student interests, objectives, and knowledge. The terrain in this case consists of the development of media literacy (critique & awareness), social networks (connections), and connected/connective knowledge.

As with any models/images/diagrams/metaphors there are always limitations and (outright) flaws. Yet, I present these three pieces (i.e., working definition of open teaching, thinning the walls, network sherpa) in hope that it will lead us to a discussion on some of the perceived changes in teaching & learning in the wider scope of education" (http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/1335)