In any given classroom, students range from \u201chere for the credit\u201d to \u201chere to learn as much as I can\u201d with the majority lying somewhere in the middle. While there will always be students who are unable to engage, there are many who can be enticed towards deeper participation when given the opportunity. Open Pedagogy can provide that opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Open Pedagogy is a broad term with many different definitions. At its core, Open Pedagogy leverages the \u201copen\u201d nature of Open Educational Resources (OERs) to facilitate learning and emphasizes community, collaboration, sharing resources, ideas, and power (Ray, 2020). Engaging in open pedagogy centres learner agency and consent; care and compassion; justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI); students creating content; and scaffolding for tools and assignments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While these concepts can be applied to all teaching practices, open pedagogy is most commonly applied to assignment design to transform disposable assignments into renewable assignments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Traditional (non-open-pedagogy) assignments \u201care often very transactional in nature, seen only by the instructor for the purpose of demonstrating content mastery and achievement of learning objectives\u201d (Clinton-Lisell & Gwozdz, 2023, p. 125). These transactional assignments, in the light of open pedagogy, are labelled as \u201cdisposable\u201d due to their non-existent life span after completion, disconnection from other course content or assignments, and lack of student agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Examples of disposable assignments include,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These assignments are valuable for demonstrating knowledge, but provide little value for students outside of the grade that they receive for completing it. Therefore, they rely on a student\u2019s personal or professional interest to encourage them to deeper or more meaningful engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the open pedagogy principles of collaboration, sharing, and learner agency get applied to assignments, they transform from a disposable, transactional exchange between student and teacher into an invitation from teachers to students to engage in a deeper form of scholarship. They \u201cprovide students with opportunities to engage in meaningful work, add value to the world, and provide a foundation for future students to learn from and build upon\u201d (Larson, 2023). The assignment is \u201cdesigned to be reused and revisited by more than just the student and their instructor\u201d (Capilano University Library, 2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Examples of renewable assignments include,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When applied to assignments, open pedagogy tends to display five different characteristics: incorporating feedback, providing options, encouraging ownership, having value beyond knowledge, and being shared with others. These characteristics can appear singly, be used together, or have significant overlap. Renewability is a spectrum depending on how many of the characteristics are present, which provides room to choose which ones align best with the learning objectives of a course and classroom culture.<\/p>\n\n\n