1) The document introduces open educational resources (OER) which are teaching, learning, and research materials that can be freely used and modified. OER include full courses, textbooks, videos, and other education tools and materials. 2) It notes that college textbook costs have increased dramatically, rising over 800% since 1978 and 3.2 times the rate of inflation. Using OER can help reduce costs for students. 3) The document advocates for an open pedagogy approach where students collaborate and connect learning beyond the classroom. It suggests rethinking traditional course elements like required texts, schedules, assignments, and grading to take an open and learner-centered approach.

1. Introduction to OPEN:
For Students on Day One
(also…there is no “Day One”)
Robin DeRosa
Your Trusty Prof
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License.

2. DRIVE YOUR OWN BUS
CCBY Dean Hochman https://flic.kr/p/dEHJzF

3. Start with OER: Gratis & Libre
Open Educational Resources
(OER) are teaching, learning,
and research resources that
reside in the public domain or
have been released under an
intellectual property license
that permits their free use and
repurposing by others. Open
educational resources include
full courses, course materials,
modules, textbooks, streaming
videos, tests, software, and
any other tools, materials, or
techniques used to support
access to knowledge.
Hewlett Foundation:
http://www.hewlett.org/programs/educati
on/open-educational-resources

4. Money Matters FO SHO
• Students spend on average $1,200 a year on textbooks
(U.S. Public Interest Research Group, survey of 156 campuses in 33 states)
• That’s equal to more than 12% of PSU in-state
tuition!
• Since 1978, college textbook costs have increased
812%. To put that in context, it means that textbook
prices have increased at 3.2 times the rate of
inflation. (Mark J Perry, AEIdeas. http://www.aei.org)
• Used/rentals/ebooks don’t solve the problem. Used
textbooks are undermined by new editions, rentals
create a system where we remove books from
learners (ugh!). Many ebooks have expiration dates
and print limits.
CCBY Sean McMenemy flic.kr/p/8L2hMU

5. This is not (only) about COST
We could save you money in tons
of easy ways:
– Increase all class sizes to 100+;
– Increase all teaching loads to 6-6;
– Close the library! Close the gym!
– Turn off the heat!
Cheaper isn’t the (only) point. Affordability
will help you get to the table…and stay here.
But that is only the beginning of how OER
can improve the learning process.

6. Resisting
“Students as
Consumers”
“Student-centered”
≠
“give the customer
what s/he wants.”
Photo: CC BY SA Magnus Manske

7. Open Pedagogy: YOU READY?
• Community and collaboration over content.
• Connects the university with the wider public.
• Treats education as a learner-developed process.
• Is skeptical of hoops, products, end-points, experts,
& gatekeeping.
CC BY Tripp flic.kr/p/6K8Kmv

8. Required Texts
Learning Outcomes
Schedule of Work
Assignments
Grading Criteria
Let’s Rethink Our Syllabus…Together

9. Required Texts:
what does OER
enable?
• Add Components
• Revise & Reorder
• Customize
Autonomy, Creativity,
Critical Thinking

10. We Can Build Our Own Book

11. Learning Outcomes
What will your YOU bring to this class?
Where will you take it?
CCBYSA Patti Neumann http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buttress_roots.JPG#/media/File:Buttress_roots.JPG

12. TechnoRhizomatic: Building your PLN
Image by Daniel Lynds, @daniellynds

13. Schedule of Work
Function of CONTENT:
for you to learn to identify what matters to you.
The shelf-life of discipline-specific content is short.
The shelf-life of learner-centered inquiry is forever.
CC BY Gayle Nicholson flic.kr/p/5wuqSd

14. CONTENT as
Dynamic
“The amount of
knowledge in the world
has doubled in the past
10 years and is [now]
doubling every 18
months…To combat the
shrinking half-life of
knowledge,
organizations have been
forced to develop new
methods of deploying
instruction.”
~Cathy Gonzalez
www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1692/decrease-in-knowledge-shelf-life-makes-performance-support-mandatory
CCBY Kevin Dooley flic.kr/p/5ttM97

15. Assignments: Help Design Them!
Connected, Not Disposable
CCBYSA Martin Abegglin flic.kr/p/7AUF3h

16. Grading: Let’s Build a Process!
• Training peer graders like we train standardized test
graders (the @Chris_Friend model)
• Open p2p Badges (the BC Campus model)
• Grading by contract and crowdsourcing (the
@CathyNDavidson model)
• Grading by guided, frequent self-evaluation (the
@Jessifer model)
• Grades that emphasize effort/engagement (the
@davecormier model)
“Every study of peer review among students shows that students
perform at a higher level, and with more care, when they know they
are being evaluated by their peers than when they know only the
teacher and the TA will be grading” ~Cathy N. Davidson

17. Beginnings&Endings?
OnlyMIDDLES!
CCBYNCND Andrew Purdam flic.kr/p/3dCSg1

18. Going Open: A Student Guide
• Understand and ask for OER where appropriate
• Create portfolios that you own, understand,
maintain, license, and leverage
• Work with your profs to help create assignments
that are useful to you and to the field
• Develop your PLN a little bit each day
• Share your ideas and your work with the world
• Let this course serve as a springboard for your
continuing educational growth
• Let our classroom be a “real world” that you love.
CCBYNC Ian-bogdan dumitrescu flic.kr/p/mRKNQ