Open Educational Practices and Pedagogies 

  Open Pedagogy Brainstorm

Task:
Think about how you could incorporate open educational practices (OEP) into your teaching. Choose one of the scenarios below and jot down a quick idea:

  1. Co-Creating a Textbook:
    Imagine you’re teaching a class. How could you involve students in writing or editing parts of the course textbook?
  2. Collaborating on Course Design:
    If you could let your students help shape the syllabus or assignments, what’s one way you might do that?
  3. Public Knowledge Contributions:
    How might you encourage students to create work that contributes to a public repository, like Wikipedia or an open-access journal?

Co-Creating Knowledge and Collaboration

Open Educational Practices (OEP) and open pedagogy go beyond simply using Open Educational Resources (OER). They focus on creating inclusive, collaborative learning environments where teachers and students co-create knowledge through interaction and reflection (Cronin, 2017). Instead of a traditional model where the teacher is the sole authority, OEP promotes an equitable dynamic where educators and students learn from each other and explore unresolved questions together.

What Is Open Pedagogy?

Open pedagogy is an ethos—a value-driven approach to education. It blends teaching, learning, technology, and social justice to create practices that are transparent, collaborative, and focused on empowerment (DeRosa and Jhangiani, 2017). At its core, open pedagogy challenges inherited teaching norms, encouraging educators and learners to critically examine the structures and ideologies shaping education today.

Examples of Open Pedagogical Practices

  • Co-Creating Course Materials: Students and teachers collaboratively write, edit, or circulate a .
  • Knowledge Contributions: Learners and educators add to shared repositories or .
  • Collaborative Course Design: Students help .
  • Open Reflection Spaces: Learners engage in that extend beyond the classroom.

Caring for Learners

Open education isn’t just about sharing resources—it’s about centering care for students. It requires thoughtful consideration of the challenges and risks that come with open practices, including issues related to technology, equity, and accessibility. Educators must ensure that the context and needs of their learners drive their choices for implementing OEP.

By combining OER, open pedagogies, and transparent processes, OEP fosters more inclusive, empowered learning experiences and contributes to the public good.

Further Reading & Resources:

  Cronin, C. (2017). Openness and praxis: Exploring the use of open educational practices in higher education. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(5). 

  Cronin, C., & MacLaren, I. (2018). Conceptualising OEP: A review of theoretical and empirical literature in Open Educational Practices. Open Praxis, 10(2), 127–143.

  DeRosa, R., & Jhangiani, R. (2017). Open pedagogy. In E.  Mays (Ed.), A guide to making open textbooks with students. Retrieved fromhttps://press.rebus.community/makingopentextbookswithstudents/chapter/open-pedagog

  Ehlers, U.-D. (2011). Extending the Territory: From Open Educational Resources to Open Educational Practices. Journal of Open Flexible and Distance Learning, 15(2), 1–10.