Presentation made at OE-Global -2017 Conference, 09 March, 2017, Cape Town, South Africa.

1. OER-INTEGRATED TEACHING AND LEARNING
IN A POST-WAR NORTHERN SRI LANKA
Sasikala Kugamoorthy, M. Rajini, Shironica P. Karunanayaka and Som Naidu
The Open University of Sri Lanka
Monash University, Australia

2. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
• ROER4D Project - Faculty of Education, Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) (2015/2016)
• Aim - To engage student teachers of Post Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE)
programme to integrate OER in their teaching-learning process and study it’s impact.
• Implementation – 09 centres of OUSL representing 09 Provinces of Sri Lanka
• Present study – Jaffna Regional Centre - Northern Province
• Explored the experiences of a group of student teachers in the process of the adoption of
OER in their teaching and learning activities.
• Reflections of a group of people who were affected by twenty six years’ civil war and have
lost the fruitful experiences of new technologies and modern approaches during their
school education, but who very recently got the exposure and an opportunity to use, create
share and integrate OER in their teaching and learning processes.
Kugamoorthy_Rajini_Karunanayaka_Naidu_OEGlobal_CapeTown_09March2017 2

3. INTRODUCTION
• Education as an Agent of Social Change…
• Social change comprise modifications in the
systems/sub-systems in structure, functioning or
process during a period of time.
• Education can initiate social changes by bringing about
changes in patterns of thinking and social behaviors of
individuals.
• The concept of Open Educational Resources (OER)
provides opportunities for teachers to adopt more open
and innovative approaches in the teaching-learning
process that can make such changes happen.
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4. CONTEXT
 Northern Sri Lanka
 Capital of Northern Province : Jaffna
Peninsula.
 Severely affected by 26 years of civil war.
 Slowly but steadily moving forward with the
hope of regaining its past glory.
 Emerging from its sufferings towards
development using Education as a key tool.
 Enacting social changes through
Education.
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5. FOCUS OF THE STUDY
• Agency of OER-integrated teaching and
learning in bringing about social change in a
post-traumatic social setting in Sri Lanka.
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6. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. How the adoption of OER has affected changing
teacher perceptions on sharing knowledge?
2. To what extent the OER-integrated teaching-learning
process has affected changing teachers’ professional
behaviours?
3. What is the role of OER-integrated teaching and
learning as an agent for social change among teachers
in a post-war context?
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7. METHODOLOGY
o Research Design: Case study
o Participants: 38 student teachers of the PGDE programme at
Jaffna Regional Centre of OUSL
o Data Collection:
oQuestionnaire Surveys
oInterviews
oClassroom Observations
oSelf-Reflections
o Data Analysis - Mainly qualitative techniques using coding and
categorizing
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8. PARTICIPANTS
Aspect Categories Number Percentage
1 Gender
Male 24 63%
Female 14 37%
2 Age
20-40 Years 38 100%
41-50 years - -
3 Subject taught
Science 13 34%
Maths 13 34%
ICT 8 21%
Social Sciences 2
05%
Health Sc 1 03%
Aesthetic 1 03%
4 School location
Urban 12 32%
Rural 24 68%
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9. FINDINGS
• Teacher Perceptions at Initial Stage
Statements Yes No
N % N %
I have heard of OER before 01 03 37 97
I have used OER before 0 0 38 100
I shared teaching learning materials developed by me with others 33 87 05 13
I shared them openly available to anyone who requests 11 29 27 71
I used teaching learning materials developed by someone else 38 100 0 0
I used resources from the internet 28 74 10 26
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10. Changes in Teachers’ Perceptions
Categories Codes Supportive Quotes
Pre-Intervention Post Intervention
Perceptions OER ...completely didn't know
about OER…
....got more clear idea about integrating
OER…
Copyrights …used resources
without any
consideration about their
copyrights or licenses…
…got to know about the CC licenses,
4Rs and the advantages of the OER…
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11. Changes in Teachers’ Thinking Patterns
Awareness
on OER
Perceptions
Awareness and
concern about
Copyrights/Licenses
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12. Changes in Teachers’ Professional Behaviors
Categories Codes Supportive Quotes
Pre-Intervention Post Intervention
Professional
Behaviors
Sharing We shared teaching
aids…but only with our
colleagues….
Now we realize…shared OERs with
colleagues and any other teachers ….
Innovation Because of the language
problem we felt its
difficult to use web
based resources in our
teaching…
I integrated several OER available in
English and I realized the importance of
mother tongue and designed an OER
page on 'tamil.wikipedia'….
Creativity …difficult to find the
proper subject
materials… had to spend
more time…
..realized the benefits of OER
…published a handbook on OER which
is a good resource for relevant OER
links… 12Kugamoorthy_Rajini_Karunanayaka_Naidu_OEGlobal_CapeTown_09March2017

13. Changes in Teachers’ Professional Behaviors
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14. Changes in Teachers’ Social Behaviors
Codes Supportive Quotes
Pre-Intervention Post Intervention
Social
behaviors
Forwardness ….teaching in remote area
schools ….resettlement is still in
progress after the war….
struggled and faced many
challenging situations…
…we are the pioneers ….came forward
as resource persons to conduct OER
awareness workshops at schools….
Interaction ...fear to interact and to express
our ideas….
…..came forward and shared the
knowledge through seminars with our
colleagues….
Personality …some barriers demotivated us
at many instances….
…. OER enhanced our thinking
capabilities and contributed to the
development of our personalities as
well….
Leadership ….no opportunities to take
leadership roles…felt
demotivated….
…..I lead and organized the workshop
and conducted it in a successful
manner…. 14Kugamoorthy_Rajini_Karunanayaka_Naidu_OEGlobal_CapeTown_09March2017

15. Changes in Teachers’ Social Behaviors (contd..)
Categories Codes Supportive Quotes
Social
behaviors
Pre-Intervention Post Intervention
Team
spirit
…teach in remote areas…
work alone…no opportunities
to work as a team…
…successfully conducted an awareness
raising programme as a team……
Sharing …due to language issues…
shy to share…
….. found and shared OER in English and
Tamil…shared ideas…
Facing
challenges
…… faced many challenging
situations…computer labs and
internet facilities at schools,
technical issues…
…great interest in OERs…motivated us to
overcome these barriers with great
enthusiasm…
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16. Changes in Teachers’ Social Behaviors
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17. DISCUSSION
At the Initial Stages…
• Student teachers seemed to be low-motivated and not-confident
• Reluctant to break their barriers
• Not ready to come out of the cocoon of fear formed around them by war
• Not ready to open-up themselves to the technically advanced world
Through engagement in the OER Project…
• Student teachers became innovative participants in the project
(Received the “Best Centre” Award..!)
• Opened-up their minds to progress with modern
educational advancements
• Their professional and social thinking patterns, behaviours
and practices have changed positively
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18. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
• OER-integrated teaching-learning has served
as a significant agent of social change, in
opening up teachers’ minds to progress with
the technological advancements and innovative
teaching-learning approaches, and changing
their professional as well as social thinking and
behaviors in a positive manner, in a post-
traumatic social setting in Sri Lanka.
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19. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the
International Development Research Centre, Ottawa,
Canada, through the Wawasan Open University of Penang,
Malaysia, as part of the research on Open Educational
Resources for Development (ROER4D) programme.
• Active participation of all student teachers in JRC of OUSL
and the support extended by all the research team members
are much appreciated.
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