Open Pedagogy

What is Open Pedagogy?

First, let’s break down each part of this term separately.

Open: in the last chapter, you learned about the open education movement and OER. In the case of open pedagogy, open is based on the same principles of sharing information publicly and globally and that the rights to access this information come without financial, technical, or legal barriers.[1]

Pedagogy: means the practice and theory of teaching and learning.[2] There are different types of pedagogies, like constructivist or collaborative. Open pedagogy is another type of pedagogy, but one that is inclusive, engaging, and rooted in social justice principles.[3]

If you were to Google “What is Open Pedagogy?” you would get a myriad of definitions and explanations. Here are some of them:

Open Pedagogy “is a site of praxis, a place where theories about learning, teaching, technology, and social justice enter into a conversation with each other and inform the development of educational practices and structures.” – Robin DeRosa and Rajiv Jhangiani[4]

“Open pedagogy, also known as open educational practices (OEP), is the use of open educational resources (OER) to support learning. When you use open pedagogy in your classroom, you are inviting your students to be part of the teaching process, participating in the co-creation of knowledge.” – BCcampus[5]

“Open pedagogy is the practice of engaging with students as creators of information rather than simply consumers of it. It’s a form of experiential learning in which students demonstrate understanding through the act of creation.” – Iowa State University[6]

Did you notice anything these definitions have in common?

They all center around the idea of empowering students and inviting students to be content and knowledge co-creators. Open pedagogy sees students as whole people with different perspectives, ideas, and skills that are valuable to the classroom and lend authenticity to the learning process.

 


  1. SPARC. (n.d.). Open education. Accessed September 6, 2023. https://sparcopen.org/open-education/
  2. “Pedagogy” (2023). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy
  3. Bali, M. (2017). “April open perspective: What is open pedagogy?” Year of Open. https://www.yearofopen.org/april-open-perspective-what-is-open-pedagogy/
  4. DeRosa, R. and Jhangiani, R. (2017). A guide to making open textbooks with students. (E. Mays, Ed.) Rebus Community. https://press.rebus.community/makingopentextbookswithstudents/chapter/open-pedagogy/ Licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License.
  5. BCcampus. (n.d.). What is open pedagogy? Accessed September 14, 2023. https://open.bccampus.ca/what-is-open-education/what-is-open-pedagogy/#:~:text=Open%20pedagogy%2C%20also%20known%20as,%2C%20professional%2C%20and%20individual%20level.
  6. Iowa State University. (n.d.). Why open education? - Build engagement with open pedagogy. https://open.lib.iastate.edu/open-education/pedagogy#:~:text=Open%20pedagogy%20is%20%22the%20practice,through%20the%20act%20of%20creation.
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The Open Pedagogy Student Toolkit Copyright © 2023 by UO Libraries is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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