Hello to all, these are my reflections about topic 2: Open Learning – Sharing and Openness.
Openness and sharing in learning are two important factors that we need to
consider, especially today with our more and more open and networked society.
But how do we define openness? In [1], it is stated that the Open Education Consortium defines open education as ‘resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness worldwide’.
It is important to be clear about our interpretation of the definition of openness, since it can be interpreted as open admission, but it can be also interpreted as free (free resources against personal data). Two other interpretation of openness are OER (Open Educational Resources) which embodies the knowledge of knowledge as a public good and OEP (Open Educational Practices) [1].
Openness is personal, contextual and continually negotiated.
In my PBL group, we focused our discussions on two aspects: ‘cultural and social understanding’ and ‘quality in open education’.
We focused on concrete things that can be done for a better learning experience. For example, trying to create an inclusive learning environment. This helps the teacher to develop a critical cultural perspective, especially if the teacher is a part of the ‘dominant culture’: instead of taking his own cultural beliefs and practices for granted and seeing them as ‘normal’, he can see them in the context of many cultures and evaluate their strengths and limitations [2].
Cultural literacy also helps to develop associated skills , such as communication and self-reflection [2].
We also discussed about how the quality could be assessed for the content available online like YouTube. This quality could be assessed by experts (teachers) but not by learners (students).
From my experience when teaching mathematics, I always tried to make the students feel more comfortable from the first lecture. This allowed me to create this inclusive learning environment and students were more open to try to solve problems.
Finally, I can say that openness in learning offers to students a wide range of extra resources (available online such as websites, videos etc.). This will definitely ensure a more equitable access to education. However, a main challenge here is to assess the quality of such resources, which must be always done by experts.
References:
[1] Cronin, C. (2017). Open Education, Open Questions. EDUCAUSE Review 52, no. 6 (November/December 2017)
[2] Flavell, H., Thackrah, R., & Hoffman, J. (2013). Developing Indigenous Australian cultural competence: A model for implementing Indigenous content into curricula. Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability
