SUNY Fredonia

September 18, 2018

Kathleen Gradel

CC BY-NC

I have adapted this prompt: ​Brainstorm ways that SUNY can help make OER or open pedagogy work for faculty, students, librarians and instructional designers on your campus.

I am responding based on my current role as a faculty member on assignment in our campus’ Professional Development Center during this academic year. In that role, I have begun to work with campus colleagues on both (a) their incorporation of OERs in their own courses; and (b) the current SUNY OER initiatives. Based on this work – and OER work in my own courses – following are a few brainstormed in-progress strategies:

Strategy 1:​ Some of our Chemistry faculty are exploring the possibility of taking the next steps on refining – and publishing – their introductory course labs. They have been developing and refining – based on multiple years’ work – these labs, including infusing “green” principles and practices. They have been able to use these labs in their own courses, and have built confidence in these experiments – used in conjunction with their f2f courses. Entertaining next steps has invigorated them in both their own pedagogy and their viability for others. Exciting!

Strategy 2:​ Along with colleagues who teach first-year seminars (within and external to the majors), we have begun infusing “student voice” through project-based learning experiences. These learning paths have led to student-licensed pieces on topics related to student success through a truly open pedagogy process. The involved faculty are exploring extended application of these learning experiences, and considering strategies for more their extended publication.

Strategy 3:​ We have embedded content into the courses required for campus novice online faculty (known at the BYOC – Build Your Online Course – sequence). In the past, we provided introductory information on OER and its functionality. As we have established more substantive OER supports on campus (primarily for course redesign), we have put OERs more clearly front and center for consideration, when faculty build their online course “roadmaps.” Syncing the planning of student learning pathways in faculty’s new course development with potential OER integration – nice!

Laura Shrader

November 19, 2018

CC BY-SA-NC

OER’s are educational materials that are free, reusable and most often allow the instructor to remix and redistribute as desired under a creative commons license.  In addition to providing a cost savings to learners, OER’s are great because they allow an instructor to mix content (text based, video based, and audio based) to create course materials that best fit the learning outcomes of a course.  In this way, they help to create a more engaging experience for the learner. Simply put, OER’s free an instructor from the constraints of using just one textbook.  One of the challenges is how best to present the OER content taken from multiple sources in a uniform, learner-centered format.  This is something we are working on on my campus.  The question becomes: How can we best present this OER content in the LMS in a way that engages students and facilitates learning?