Foreword

As an an Open Educational Resources (OER) Librarian, I raise awareness about the high cost of textbooks on campus and support faculty in finding low or no cost options for course materials that align with and support their pedagogy.

One of the ways faculty can and already are increasing textbook affordability is through adopting or authoring Open Educational Resources (OER), which are openly licensed textbooks and other course materials that students can access for free on day one of their course, just like this textbook! The open licensing of these materials allows faculty to flexibly adopt and adapt them at any time without needing to work with a traditional publisher.

Open pedagogy is a natural extension of the OER movement, but instead of solely focusing on access and the materials faculty use to teach, it shifts the conversation to involving and empowering students in the creation of OER as a teaching method. It encourages faculty to rethink traditional power dynamics in the classroom of instructor as authority, and it positions students as co-creators of knowledge and active contributors to the scholarly conversation, rather than passive consumers of information (Elder, 2019, ‘Open Pedagogy’ section; Clifton & Hoffman, 2020, p.11).

In libraries, we also talk a lot about the importance of students building information and digital literacies to effectively navigate an increasingly complex information landscape. These include skills like finding and critically evaluating information they find online, ethically using and sharing information, and effectively navigating and using digital tools and platforms.

If you’ve ever created open or publicly available content online before, such as on a website or a blog, you’ll know that it’s not as simple as uploading a Word document online! Importantly, to digitally publish, you need to build the technical skills to use one or more digital platforms to make your work available online. However, the process of digitally publishing content also involves many considerations and decision points that challenge you to think through topics like writing for the web, attribution and citation, copyright and licensing, data management, digital accessibility and more (Cronin, 2019, p.8-9).

Open pedagogy provides a framework for teaching and engaging with all of these skills with students and more, so while there will certainly be a rich, open resource at the end of an open pedagogy journey, students will have also gained invaluable and transferrable skills along the way! Learning How to Learn Languages provides a window into this journey and the potential of open pedagogy as a student-centered teaching method.

Each student brought their own passion and strengths to this project to contribute original writing, editing, illustrations, videography, and multimedia design. Throughout the process, they gained technical skills in multiple digital tools and publishing platforms; they learned about copyright, citation, and attribution; they learned how to make their content digitally accessible to support all learners; and they participated in discussions of what it means to practice in the open and made decisions about how they preferred to openly license their own work.

Together, they created an engaging resource to fill a gap in language learning OER that has the potential to support language learners worldwide.  For students reading this text for the first time, I hope you will be inspired by your peers to take ownership of your learning and share your own important knowledge with the world through open pedagogy.

Rayne Vieger, OER Librarian, University of Oregon Libraries

References

Clifton, A. & Hoffman, K.D. (2020) Open Pedagogy Approaches. Milne Library Publishing 

Cronin. C. (2019). Open education: Walking a critical path. In D. Conrad, & P. Prinsloo (Eds.), Open(ing) Education: Theory and Practice. Leiden: Brill.

Elder, A.K. (2019). The OER Starter Kit. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Digital Press.