Definition and Philosophy

What is "Open Pedagogy"?

Unlike "open educational resources," which has a very clear, concise, and well-accepted definition (as covered back in the first part of this workshop--see Open Educational Resource: Definition), the term "open pedagogy" is still relatively loose.  The Open Education Consortium includes the words "collaboration and sharing" in their discussion of using OER in the classroom Links to an external site..  Perhaps the most thorough discussion of what "open pedagogy" might mean is provided by Dr. David Wiley, co-founder and Chief Academic Officer of Lumen Learning, in a 2013 post on his blog at opencontent.org Links to an external site.:

"Open pedagogy is that set of teaching and learning practices only possible in the context of the free access and 4R permissions characteristic of open educational resources." 

Wiley's essay is so crucial to understanding the concept of open pedagogy that I am going to make a big link to it right here and strongly advise you to give it a read:

Dr. David Wiley, "What Is Open Pedagogy?" Links to an external site.

Byte: “Open pedagogy” refers to educational practices that utilize the unique freedoms offered by openly-licensed materials in order to more directly engage students in learning:

• by replacing traditional “disposable” assignments with renewable learning objects that retain (and, potentially, accumulate) value from one semester (and one student) to the next
• by building assignments that involve students in mastering content by teaching each other using reusable and remixable materials

This second part of the workshop discusses some of the possibilities of open pedagogy and offers some thoughts on open course policies that obligate more student engagement and demystify the syllabus.

Let's all be really clear, though: it doesn't end here.  If anything, this is the beginning.