History of Open Education and Learning

As has been noted in our discussions, most of the studies and articles on Open Education, including the articles by Peter and Deimann (2013), and Weller and Martin (2018), refer to open education as it applies to higher education. In the Zawacki-Richter and Naidu article however, the focus is distance education, which did and does apply to K-12. The distinction is important, as K-12 has different parameters than higher education. The simplest way to distinguish the difference is to focus on the aspect of voluntary versus compulsory schooling. Education that is voluntary (i.e. higher education) means that students choose to enroll, and thus pay, for the education. In K-12 (or K-10, which is usually when students are 16 years old and is the end of compulsory education in BC),  there is no “paying” for education (besides parental property taxes and other income tax), so “open” as it applies to free financial access, is already achieved.

In both the Peter and Diemann (2013) article, as well as the Weller, M. (2018, August) article, it is relevant to reflect on the past to see whether there are emerging patterns, as well as cycles of repetition. Too often, what is touted as a “new” insight is a recycled idea. In our current digital world, one may argue that while the medium is different, there are still familiar themes of discussion. Moving forward, the issues that we may encounter in using OER and OEP will likely have roots in previous iterations of open education and resources.

Biases worth noting are the focus on both “Western” historical information, and males vs females.  While coffee houses and cathedral schools were places for European open educational opportunities, this does not include the Asian continent at all.  As well, the presumption would be that women were not included in the historical “open” education; it would have been reserved for men only, which was not very “open.”

How does the history of open education affect my classroom?

As a source of comparison, it is noteworthy that some of the open principles of coffee houses are in place in the K-12 classroom. Certainly there are restrictions based on topics within the charter of rights and freedoms, but encouragement of thought and opinion are in place, and emphasis on honing argument and debate is practiced. In my English classes we usually have in-class debates in which pairs of students research a debate topic and present against another pair in class. Afterwards we include class reaction and response, which depending on the class, can be very lively. This is also replicable in a digital world if a synchronous video or audio session is used, especially if it is a group chat. This may also be replicated using text.

 

It has become apparent that I must distinguish between Open Educational Resources, Open Educational Practices, and Massive Open Online Courses, because I have mixed one with the others. As well, the other important distinction is how they apply to K-12 education instead of post-secondary.

Open Educational Resources

Before proceeding, it is important to clarify what “open” means in this context. According to the Hewlett Foundation, “OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.”

Open Educational Resources for K-12 is not seen as big of an issue as it is in post-secondary education. Course materials are sometimes guarded by individual teachers, but many openly share with others. There are websites like Teachers Pay Teachers that allows teachers to upload their material for others to buy, but since much material can already be found for “free” online, the website has limited draw. As for the K-12 classroom, certainly there are budget constraints that limit the kinds of resources that a given teacher may offer students, but generally speaking, whatever educational resources a teacher uses in the classroom comes at no cost to the student. Even subscriptions to particular websites are factored into department, or school, or district budgets. This is part of the mandate of public education, and is what comes under scrutiny by the public when schools charge “fees” for educational purposes. Any monetary charges must be voluntary if it is for classroom use, and either other alternatives for learning must be provided, or the school or other agencies may cover the cost of those whose financial situations cannot incur the cost. Under these regulations, Open Educational Resources are a non-issue. As for the department or school’s perspective, Open Educational Resources would allow for more diverse offerings to the students if budget constraints prevent a teacher from buying particular resources. In a market-based economy, that would mean that the structure of monetary compensation for authors of texts and materials would need to change, as publishers would not profit from sales of books, and thus would not offer authors contracts to publish their books. Offering texts free of charge would either be very altruistic of an author because the time spent writing would not be monetarily reimbursed, or an author would have to be sponsored monetarily by a benefactor who receives money through advertisement.

Having said all of that, “true” Open Educational Resources (that would be provided free of charge for educational purposes only), would greatly expand the opportunities in the K-12 classroom. I say “true” in quotes because “free” and “open” are very closely tied, but depending on the context, are used differently. In terms of OER, “open” essentially means, “free.” What about “resources”? In K-12 that would include many more things besides course materials. The above definition also includes, “any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.” In my English classes, OER would especially positively affect the English text resources. That is, Open Educational Resources for written texts such as novels or anthologies of poems or short stories would open up the possibilities for student access. At the same time, non-text resources such as taking students to see a stage play, going to a museum or art gallery without working it into a budget would liberate more classes. In the Japanese class, much more could be done to enhance the cultural aspect of learning the language. Going to eat Japanese food, or realia such as abacuses and calligraphy brushes and ink without needing to deplete our department’s meagre budget would mean much better overall learning. But who pays? Ostensibly it would have to fall on the province to pick up the tabs, because it would not be good business practice for the companies to offer their products or services free for educational purposes.

Open Educational Practices

As defined in the BCcampus OpenEd webpage, OEP is, “Open pedagogy, also known as open educational practices (OEP), is the use of open educational resources (OER) to support learning, or the open sharing of teaching practices with a goal of improving education and training at the institutional, professional, and individual level.”

As such, in the high school classroom this is often organic. That is, students often participate in creating resources without their explicit knowledge. Students provide feedback either directly through comments, or indirectly by their enthusiasm (or lack thereof) in any given assignment, which determines the direction the assignment or course in general, will proceed. Sometimes the student participation is explicit when doing something like a inquiry project. It is a little bit like the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books of the 1980s – students are guided based on their responses. Of course not all assignments or courses are run that way, but that feedback is vital to keeping a course lively and active. At our school, the new BC English 10 curriculum is rolled out in that way. The way our English department has set it up, students are introduced to the five components of English 10: Literature, Spoken, Creative Writing, New Media, and Composition. Halfway through the course, they are to choose an area and work on an inquiry project for the remainder of the course, with a presentation of their project at the end. At the same time, as much as inquiry projects are touted as student-led, it is still a top-down approach by a teacher dictating that the class will be doing inquiry projects.

Massive Open Online Courses

For higher education, MOOCs can be an efficient way to learn. The overall usefulness of MOOCs seems to come down to intent. With a certificate completion rate between 5-15% (according to Fiona Hollands & Aasiya Kazi, CBCSE, Teachers College, Columbia University) the vast majority do not take the courses primarily to complete them. That is, the content is used as professional development or for more casual learning. For those who complete the certificates, MOOCs tend to be stepping stones to further, more structured, accredited programs.

How does this affect the K-12 classroom? Large MOOCs such as Coursera and EdX are geared towards higher education and not K-12. MOOCs would be the same as any district-run online learning option that is already in place, which some students use not because of mobility or distance issues, but to speed up the time to graduate, or to avoid taking a particular subject in the classroom. Of course, some students take online courses because of social anxiety or other health-related issues, and for these students online courses allow them to attain educational success from home. In the past I have had students who were interested in learning Japanese, but could not fit it into their timetables. They asked whether they could take it from me outside of the timetable, which would amount to a MOOC style class. The extra work this would have meant for me (without compensation) made me decline their request. If however, the school district paid me per student I was “teaching,” I might consider making a MOOC style course. This begins to creep into a for-profit system though, and goes against the main tenets of public education.

The topics of OER and OEP are important in the new digital age, and their effects on K-12 are yet to be clearly felt. As the cohort in Langley can attest, these models are a work in progress, and time is the only judge of its success.