OEPr: Open Educational Practices
OEPr can be more narrowly defined by identifying skills and abilities educators apply when opening their teaching and learning environments by removing barriers to learning (Cronin, 2017; Nascimbeni & Burgos, 2016). Paskevicius (2017) defined OEPr as “practices where openness is enacted within all aspects of instructional practice; including the design of learning outcomes, the selection of teaching resources, and the planning of activities and assessment” (p. 127). I will explored the OEPr of teacher educators as they engaged and participated, created and networked, selected learning objects, and/or applied Creative Commons licensing (Paskevicius, 2017; Watt, 2019).
Nascimbeni and Burgos (2016) attempted to identify and measure the qualities of an open educator using their Open Educators Factory (OEF) which examined elements of teaching practice such as openly designing learning, developing and using open content, teaching openly, and applying assessment that shifts beyond the notion of a disposable assignment (Nascimbeni & Burgos, 2016; Paskevicius, 2018; Wiley & Hilton, 2018). Further, this description adds characteristics of an open educator:
Tur et al., (2020) suggest a different focus when becoming an open educator and enacting an OEPr. Applying a threshold concepts lens, Tur et al., (2020) describe OEPr as "capabilities, skills, experiences or practices ... which might also indicate ways of thinking, practicing and being which act to signal membership of, or changing status within, a community of practice" (p. 5). Tur et al., (2020) suggest a threshold that bounds an OEPr over which practitioners must cross. OEPr require transitions whereby an educator undergoes becoming, through rights-of-passage involving doing (experiences), sense making (knowledge) and identities (being) that are transformative, troublesome, and liminal (Tur et al., 2020). This coincides with Gee's (2017) notion of "being" and "becoming" highlighting this internal state - in becoming an open educator.An Open Educator chooses to use open approaches, when possible and appropriate, with the aim to remove all unnecessary barriers to learning. He/she works through an open online identity and relies on online social networking to enrich and implement his/her work, understanding that collaboration bears a responsibility towards the work of others (Nascimbeni & Burgos, 2016, p. 4).
To further distinguish between OEPr as an external action or event to one that focuses on internal qualities, Cronin's (2017) clarification of openness as “individual, complex and contextual” (p. 18) is a helpful starting point. This conception of OEPr brings to the forefront the individual to whom the open practice matters as an educator, situated within the contextualized, complex spaces where personal identity, on multiple levels, is continually negotiated, and where personal and connected decisions are made, both within and from outside educational contexts (Cronin, 2016). This is where the conceptualization of OEPr is reframed as individual, online identity building, hospitable, negotiated and reflective.
Next, I propose a holistic conception of teaching practice as open as I juxtapose Cronin’s (2016) notion of openness with the writing of Parker J. Palmer (2017), who described three entanglements in teaching. First is the content or subject matter that must be managed. Second is the complexity brought to the teaching environment as embodied in each student. The third suggests the greatest challenge that comes from within each educator since “we teach who we are” (p. 2). Palmer (2017) stated:
When thinking about OEPr, it is into open education spaces that TEds project their inner selves, as they become both a mirror and a window (Style, 1988) and where their teaching is openly displayed in all the layers, negotiations, tasks, actions, and care encompassed within the act and art of teaching. In open educational contexts, OEPr is a reflection of everything TEds are and do as a teacher. The digital technologies and resources they select, use and integrate into their courses will mirror their personality, persona and identity, both physical and digital. TEds reveal, either physically or virtually, their identity and selfhood since “good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher” (Palmer, 2017, p. 4).Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one’s inwardness, for better or worse. … The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life. Viewed from this angle, teaching holds a mirror to the soul. If I am willing to look in that mirror, and not run from what I see, I have a chance to gain self-knowledge—and knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject (p. 3).
I define OEPr as the sum total of an educator's internal ethos, acts of hospitality, and ways of being open, along with pedagogical decisions and shared scholarship. OEPr requires continual and intentional negotiations in education related spaces and places, making decisions that impact student learning, and presenting opportunities to explore open assessments, integrate open technologies, and engage with open communities (see Figure 6 below). One area that requires further exploration is how OEPr are impacted or influenced by skills, fluencies, competencies and engagement with media and digital literacies. The concepts of MDL are explored in the next section.
