Our team (Ashley Breton, Emma Keating, Karen McMurray, and Ash Senini) will present a micro-course on open educational practices, where participants will explore how this approach might change the role of the online facilitator. Open educational practices (OEP) is a broad term used to describe practices that include “the creation, use, and reuse of open educational resources (OER), as well as open pedagogies” (Cronin, 2017, p.15) 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” (BCcampus, n.d., para. 1). In our week of facilitation, our goal is to demonstrate an open facilitation practice, as well as have students engage with an open practice in their activities and assessment.
| Facilitation Week Plan October 9 – 15, 2022 | ||
| Timing | Activity | Resources/ Supplies |
| Day 1 Sunday October 9 |
Asynchronous introduction – Release welcome and overview video | Email
Video (Youtube) Course schedule Groups |
| Day 2 Monday October 10 |
Synchronous Session 11am PST (See lesson plan below) |
Zoom link
Mentimeter Hypothes.is User Orientation: Tutorial and instructions for social annotation activity |
| Day 3 Tuesday October 11 |
Asynchronous Social Annotation Activity –
Purpose is to get participants in groups of four to annotate on articles about OEP |
Hypothes.is
Readings: Cronin, C. (2017). Openness and Praxis: Exploring the Use of Open Education Practices in Higher Education. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, Athabasca University, www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/3096/4301. Hilton III, J., Wiley, D., Stein, J., & Johnson, A. (2010). The four ‘R’s of openness and ALMS analysis: Frameworks for open educational resources. The Journal of Open Distance and E-Learning, 25(1), p. 37-44. DOI: 10.1080/02680510903482132 Nascimbeni, F., & Burgos, D. (2016). View of in search for the open educator: Proposal of a definition and a framework to increase openness adoption among university educators. Retrieved from: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/2736/3941 |
| Day 4 Wednesday October 12 |
Mid-week Asynchronous Check-In – Announcement/reminder of annotation activity and reflection is due October 12th (Day 6) | |
| Day 5 Thursday October 13 |
Annotation Activity Closed – Announcement/reminder of annotation activity is closed now, and reflection is due October 12th (Day 6)
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| Day 6 Friday October 15 |
Asynchronous Reflection Activity Due –
Participants will reflect on their learnings and core course concepts by answering the following three prompts: In what ways do online facilitators use open educational practices (OEP)? Why do/don’t facilitators use OEP? What practices, values and/or strategies are shared by facilitators who use OEP, if any? Next, set three development goals for yourself that will help you transition to being an open educator. Your goals may be specific to one area of activity (design, content, teaching, assessment) or address a combination of areas. Here are the guidelines for your three goals: In what ways could you incorporate OEP into your own context? What is one change you can make to your practice in the next 24 hours? The next week? The next month? What kind of impact might these changes have on your online facilitation practice? You can choose to share your work on social media with family, friends, and colleagues — or just save your goals to return to in one week, one month, and one year. Attribution This activity builds upon the work of: Making Sense of Open Education Day 11 by Maureen Glynn is licensed under CC BY 4.0 International |
WordPress/Website
Discussion prompts
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| Day 7 Saturday October 16 |
Asynchronous Course Wrap-up –
Wrap up post and video reflecting back on participant reflections, course activities, and a chance to provide links to ongoing resources. |
Email
Video (Youtube) Post |
Groups for OEP Facilitation Week
| Team “O” | Team “E “ | Team “P” |
| Jolee
London Stephanie Sam |
Amber
Corie Luis Katia |
Zac
Melissa Sharmila Gail |
| Synchronous Session Plan | ||
| Time | Activities | Supplies/Resources |
| 5 minutes | Icebreaker/ Warmup | Zoom
Jamboard animal as facilitator openness-centered or animal encounter icebreaker google image search |
| 10 minutes | Lecture – OEP/What it means to be an Open Facilitator | Zoom
Slide Deck Indigenous knowledge considerations |
| 2 minutes | Where on the Open Educator Continuum are you? | Zoom
Slide Deck Indigenous knowledge considerations |
| 12 minutes | Review & Reflect: Breakout rooms
Participants will split into their groups and answer the following two questions: Based on what you have learned about OEP and open facilitation thus far, would you describe Professor Bates as an open facilitator? What characteristics did/didn’t he display to make you think that way, if any? <OR> What characteristics resonate with you and your team the most? |
Zoom
Curated resource: Youtube Video Simon Bates, a Killam Teaching Prize winner at University of British Columbia (2 min 5 seconds). Discussion prompts |
| 15 minutes | Return & Report – Participants discuss their ideas or summarize their group’s findings either with the entire group or via the chat | Zoom |
| 10 minutes | Housekeeping announcements and time for Q & A | Zoom
Slide Deck |
Some notes about our technology selections:
Our facilitation week has been developed using freely available social media technologies, such as WordPress, Slack, Mentimeter, Zoom and others. The pedagogical rationale has its foundations in Problem-Based Learning (PBL).
For our synchronous session, we have chosen to use Zoom video conferencing software. Some primary benefits of using Zoom are that it is easy to set up and navigate, has multiple interactive features (i.e., screen sharing, collaborative whiteboard, polling, etc.), and can accommodate small group discussions and breakout room activities. While we have reservations about how Zoom collects and stores data, the trade-off here is that it will allow for a smoother synchronous session, because our team has ample experience using this technology. Our team will also employ Mentimeter, in addition to Zoom, to collaborate with participants in real time, enhance student engagement, and give and receive feedback. By employing these technologies in our synchronous session, we hope to provide our participants with more opportunities to engage in active learning, which researchers Vaughan et al. (2013) suggest may lead to more meaningful learning.
For our two asynchronous activities, we have chosen to use Hypothes.is and participants’ MALAT WordPress blogs. Hypothes.is is an open-source tool that allows students to co-annotate readings. According to Brown and Croft (2020), social annotation disrupts “traditional knowledge practices in higher education that are structured around hierarchy, one-way knowledge transfer, and historical definitions of what knowledge means” (p.2). Furthermore, we will likely host our course information on one of our MALAT WordPress blogs, so that our facilitation week demonstrates openness in practice. Participants will post a reflection on their MALAT blogs for other students to comment on each other’s contributions. Using WordPress also allows participants to easily engage in discussion with others any time, anywhere, and on any device.
The synchronous and asynchronous learning events described above will introduce fundamental concepts of open educational practice (OEP) and aim to build relationships between participants as they move through the course. By the end of the week, learners should identify the ways in which OEP might impact their online facilitation practice (or the practice of others), and with the knowledge and support offered in this course, they will be well-equipped to determine whether or not the move toward ‘open’ is the right move for them.
COI presences:
Teaching presence:
The design of the annotation exercise is appropriate to construct a learning environment and engage participants.
Direct instructions on how to navigate through the course highlight teaching presence that provides leadership, boundaries, and outlines expectations from the participants
Social presence:
Facilitator introduction video allows participants to see their facilitators as real people and relate to their individual fields and circumstances
Synchronous activity break out exercise: develops social presence by allowing participants to communicate in real time, taking advantage of as close to ‘in-person’ communication as possible. This allows natural flow of communication, sparks genuine comments and encourages dialogue
Cognitive presence:
Annotation exercise encourages deep thinking and digestion of material supporting understanding.
Reflection exercise provides an opportunity for the participants to see beyond the required learning and explore the applications of the material (OER in their field or environment.)
Collaborating on the annotation exercise can trigger further exploration of material as students review each other’s annotations and conclusions
References:
BC Campus. (n.d.) What is open pedagogy?
https://open.bccampus.ca/what-is-open-education/what-is-open-pedagogy/
Brown, M. and Croft, B., 2020. Social Annotation and an Inclusive Praxis for Open Pedagogy in the College Classroom. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2020(1), p.8. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/jime.561