QUICK RESOURCE SHEET #83

Open education

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I recently received a request to create a Quick Resource Sheet on the topic of open education. I had some ideas about what this might mean, but I wasn’t quite certain. In doing research for this sheet, I discovered there is a great deal of overlap in the literature on this topic and that of humanistic teaching. (For more background on that topic, see http://www.om.hu/doc/upload/200605/rs80.htm.)

From http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/affsys/humed.html, here are a few key points central to the idea of open education:

1. Allow the student to have a choice in the selection of tasks and activities whenever possible.

2. Help students learn to set realistic goals.

3. Have students participate in group work, especially cooperative learning, in order to develop social and affective skills.

4. Be a role model for the attitudes, beliefs and habits you wish to foster.

From the same source, we learn that open education is associated with “improved cooperativeness, creativity, and independence.” Open education was popularized in British school systems in the 1960s, with many schools basing their programs on the ideas of facilitative teaching associated with Carl Rogers (see http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-rogers.htm and http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/racyberlib/Social/interviews/rogers-amutual.html.)

Over the years, open education has fallen out of favor with some groups, but more importantly – as it becomes increasingly clear that no one approach works with all students – the ways in which we understand and apply the concepts of open education have changed dramatically, especially, of course, with the rapidly advancing use of technology in education.

Below, you’ll find resources giving a bit of historical background on open education, as well as information on a variety of current approaches to open education.

http://www.educationnext.org/20042/68.html

“…while the open classroom has clearly disappeared from the vocabulary of educators, another variation of open education is likely to reappear in the years ahead. Deep-seated progressive and traditional beliefs about rearing children, classroom teaching and learning, and the values and knowledge that should be instilled in the next generation will continue to reappear because schools historically have been battlegrounds for solving national problems and working out differences in values.”

http://owli.org/aggregator/sources/6?PHPSESSID=eb2d209e3ff98be2e1a56afb1cf70d84

“…the Open World Learning Institute is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for building stronger communities, families and organizations. OWL does this by researching, developing and distributing the best practices and the best resources locally and from around the world for using ICT to accomplish greater access to education.”

http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/perspectives/sub.asp?key=244&subkey=1580

“Toru challenges his fellow advocates for open education to tackle three challenges that stand in the way of real impact on teaching and learning: the need to couple educational tools and resources with information that allows others to use them effectively; the need to bring more rewards to the work of documenting and building on shared educational work; and the need to build larger collaborative communities for sharing and building knowledge.”

http://www.apoplous.org/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=28

This is the most recent issue of the Open Education newsletter, highlighting practical application of the concepts of open education in classrooms in Cyprus.

http://topics.developmentgateway.org/openeducation/

“The Open Educational Resources initiative… is based on a philosophical view of knowledge as a collective social product to become a social property. …OER offers now platforms and tools under IPR licences such as Creative Commons, to allow for new approaches of learning, based on social interaction and active manipulation of existing educational resources in view of value-addition, and knowledge-creation by the learners… »

http://cosl.usu.edu/conferences/opened2006/

“The field of open education is gaining momentum around the world. Literally hundreds of open education projects are springing up from Tokyo to Boston to Paris to Beijing. Over 2000 courses are now available through OpenCourseWare projects alone. Add to this the growing number of open access learning object repositories, increases in the number and quality of open source educational software projects, the open education work agencies like UNESCO and the OECD are doing, and the field is diversifying as quickly as it is growing.

Open Education 2006: Community, Culture, and Content is a multidisciplinary event designed to promote the discussion of the variety of research, development, and other activities necessary to move the field of open education forward.”

Previous editions of the QUICK RESOURCE SHEET

#1 – Creating quizzes (and more) online                                                         

#2 – Vocabulary builders

#3 – Online discussion groups for English teachers                                    

#4 – Grammar headaches – and how to cure them

#5 – Resources for new teachers                                                     

#6 – International Education Week

#7 – Mentoring programs                                                                    

#8 – Education publications online

#9 – Applied Linguistics                                                                   

#10 – English for Young Learners

#11 – World AIDS Day                                                                      

#12 – Online writing guides

#13 – E-mail exchanges                                                                      

#14 – Free online English courses

#15 – Effective e-mail communication                                             

#16 – Libraries online

#17 – American Studies                                                                     

#18 – Teaching methodologies

#19 – Internet tutorials                                                                       

#20 – Using the newspaper – Part I

#21 – Making books                                                                           

#22 - Using the newspaper – Part II

#23 – Human rights in language teaching

#24 – Blogging

#25 – Poetry and language teaching

#26 – The communicative approach

#27 -  Idioms

#28 – Earth Day

#29 – Alternative assessment

#30 – Peer assessment

#31 – Self-assessment

#32 – Portfolio assessment – Part I

#33 -  Portfolio assessment - Part II (Online Portfolios)

#34 – Intercultural communication

#35 – Teaching Adults

#36 – Learning disorders / Special needs

#37 – Using computers in reading instruction

#38 – Use of authentic materials

#39 – English for Medical Purposes

#40 – Sources for authentic materials

#41 – Education and technology

#42 – Academic writing

#43 – Teaching and stress

#44 – Back to school

#45 – Motivating students

#46 – Action research

#47 – Internet terminology

#48 – Fluency

#49 – Curriculum design

#50 – Pragmatics

#51 - Podcasting for English teachers

#52 – Critical reading

#53 – Learner autonomy

#54 – Scaffolding

#55 – Holidays

#56 – English for Academic Purposes

#57 – Mixed-level classes

#58 – The brain and language learning

#59 – Book clubs/Readers’ groups

#60 – Teachers and technology

#61 – Using video in the language classroom

#62 – Internet-based classroom projects

#63 – Observing student teachers

#64 – Digital literacy

#65 – Group work

#66 – Giving feedback on student writing

#67 – Vlogging

#68 – Educational leadership

#69 – The first five minutes: How to get a class warmed up

#70 – Managing test anxiety

#71 – Developing listening comprehension

#72 – Discourse analysis

#73 – English for Tourism

#74 – Storytelling

#75 – Virtual Learning Environments

#76 – Sociolinguistics

#77 – Corpus Linguistics

#78 – Teaching teenagers

#79 – Lexical Approach

#80 – Humanism in language teaching

#81 – Collaborative teaching

#82 – Distance learning