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Open Education Resources (OER): Open Pedagogy

Open Pedagogy

Open pedagogy is a form of experiential learning where students demonstrate understanding through creation. It engages students as creators of information, rather than simply consumers of it (UTA Libraries).  

An aspect of open pedagogy is open assignments.

More Information on Open/Renewable Assignments

Open Assignments

With open assignments, students create openly licensed materials that have an impact beyond the classroom and into the greater community. These assignments are sometimes called renewable assignments because they are designed to be reused and revisited by more than just the student and their instructor.  

Open or renewable assignments are the opposite of traditional, disposable assignments, such as essays or multiple-choice exams. In general, disposable assignments are only seen by the student and instructor before receiving a grade and being deleted or thrown in the (literal) garbage.

Disposable vs. Renewable Assignments

  Assignment Type Student creates an artifact  Artifact has value beyond creator’s learning  Artifact is publicly accessible  Artifact is openly licensed 
Disposable Assignments Essay Yes No No No
Multiple Choice Exam  Yes No No No

Personal Reflection 

 Yes No No No
Renewable Assignments Edit Wikipedia  Yes Yes Yes Yes
Create Open Test Bank  Yes Yes Yes Yes

Community Research Project  

 Yes Yes Yes Yes

 

Examples of Open Assignmensts

  1. Create or revise an open textbook: students participate in creating and revising openly licensed course materials. Adapting OER can be especially relevant for unique subjects that are lacking in high quality OER. 
  2. Edit or create Wikipedia Articles: writing or editing articles allows students to learn about a topic and about the cycle of information creation. 
  3. Create quiz banks and test questions: students craft learning assessment tools to engage with class material. 
  4. Co-create learning outcomes with students: a form of collaborative syllabus design.  
  5. More examples from Open Education Group: OER Enabled Pedagogy. 

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Unless otherwise noted, this guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Except where otherwise noted, information on this page was adapted by Darcye Lovsin (JIBC) and Alyssa Hamer (Capilano University) from Introduction to Open Pedagogy by University of Texas Arlington Libraries (CC BY-NC 4.0); Notes on Open Pedagogy by David Wiley (CC BY 4.0); and Open Educational Resources (OER) Toolkit: Teach by Macalester College (CC BY-SA 4.0).