Author Archives: chendric

Perceptions of Open Pedagogy

I am doing a presentation at the eCampus Ontario Technology Enhanced Seminar and Showcase in a couple of weeks, and one thing I’ll be talking about is student and faculty perceptions of the benefits and challenges/barriers to open pedagogy. I’m focused on college and university education, but am also interested in responses from those who teach and learn at other educational institutions.

I have some information along those lines, but I’m writing this post for people to comment on to provide more if they wish.

So, if you are willing, please answer one or more of the following in the comments below. If you want to be anonymous you can use a pseudonym and also a false email address when signing in to provide your comment.

Thanks!

Questions:

  1. Are you a student who has engaged in an open pedagogy project, or a faculty member who has asked students to do so? Or maybe a staff member who has helped design one?
  2. What kind of open pedagogy activity were you involved with?
    1. If you want, you can say what kind of course it was (topic, year level)–though note that this might identify you if you don’t want to be identified.
  3. What were the benefits of this activity?
    1. If you were a student, what did you get out of it?
    2. If you engaged in open pedagogy as a teacher or staff member, what did you hope students got out of it? Why did you ask them to do this? Do you have any evidence, formal or informal, of the benefits of the activity?
  4. What were some challenges or barriers you faced?
    1. What could have or did go wrong?
    2. What potential problems with this kind of activity should others be aware of?
    3. Any advice?

 

Remember that you can remain anonymous by not giving your real name or email address, if you want.

Note that quotes from these answers may be used in my presentation at the event linked above, and may be on slides that are publicly viewable. If you want to provide comments without them being seen here, but you wouldn’t mind me paraphrasing from them, please email me: christina.hendricks@ubc.ca

Update Nov. 11 2017

I got a fantastic set of comments from a student via email. She gave me permission to post them here, which I really am happy to do because they are so helpful. Here they are as a PDF: StudentComments-OpenPedagogy-Nov2017

 

 

Open Pedagogy, shared aspects

This post is part of my reflection on an upcoming talk I’m giving at Douglas College about open pedagogy: “What’s Open about Open Pedagogy?” I an earlier post I started collecting some examples of activities that people have put under the umbrella of open pedagogy. Then I did some reflecting on possible differences between open pedagogy and open educational practices . In my last post I looked at open education in the 60s and 70s.

Here I’m trying to summarize what I’ve got so far around open pedagogy. This is an extension of work I did in a series of posts on open pedagogy earlier this year, all of which are linked in the last one: Navigating Open Pedagogy Part 2. In that post I did a good deal of pulling together of various threads of how people define open pedagogy, and here I’m going to try to refine it even more.

So reading that post might be a useful precursor to this post, because I’m going to do some shorthand here, based on what was discussed there. I’ll also be adding some things based on what else I’ve read since then.

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Open Education in the 60s and 70s

icon of footprints with three arrows at the top, pointing in different direction, indicating the concept of choice

Learner choice and autonomy as important to open education in the 60s and 70s. Icon purchased from The Noun Project.

As I’ve been thinking lately about open pedagogy (see all posts on this blog with that tag), I’ve been looking back over some of what others have said about it, and was reminded that a couple of people in the last year have talked about how “open education” has been used/defined in the past and how some of that appears similar to how “open pedagogy” is used today. In this post I dig into some of the earlier work that other people have pointed to, in order to try to understand at least a little bit about some of the history of these concepts, while fully recognizing this is only a tiny taste of what is likely out there.

The things I’ve seen lately from others are from Tannis Morgan (Open Pedagogy and a Very Brief History of the Concept) and Vivien Rolfe (slides for “Open. But not for criticism?” ). Looking at these led me down a bit of a rabbit hole about the open education movement in England & North America in the 60s and 70s. I start here with a bit of general background on the movement, and then look at some of the things Morgan & Rolfe point to.

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Open pedagogy, Open Educational Practices

Venn diagram with open learning and teaching practices in one cirlce and qualities of open learning content in another. Where they cross is called open educational resources (OER)

From Open Practices Briefing Paper (Beetham et al., 2012). Licensed CC BY-NC 3.0

 

This post is part of my reflection on an upcoming talk I’m giving at Douglas College about open pedagogy: “What’s Open about Open Pedagogy?” In my previous post I started collecting some examples of activities that people have put under the umbrella of open pedagogy. In an earlier post I collated a number of definitions of open pedagogy, and in my next post I plan to dig more deeply into what I think open pedagogy is and what might be “open” about it.

Here I’m going to do a short reflection on possible differences between “open pedagogy” and “open educational practices” (OEP). I have used open pedagogy and OEP interchangeably in the past, and I’m now thinking it might be helpful to consider where they might differ.

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Open pedagogy: examples of class activities

An upcoming talk I’m giving

On October 26 I’m giving a talk at Douglas College in the Vancouver, BC (Canada) area, with the title: “What’s Open about Open Pedagogy?” It’s part of Douglas College’s Open Access Week events.

I brainstorm by writing, and I figured I might as well share my rough thoughts with others in case they find any of it useful. I’ll also share the slides from the talk here on my blog when they’re finished. I expect things will change significantly once my thoughts get from the rough brainstorm form to the slides!

I’m thinking at the moment of an outline for the talk along these lines (with an intro as yet unspecified, talking about why it’s useful to discuss this at all):

  1. What are some examples of things that people have called “open pedagogy”?
  2. How have others defined open pedagogy? What do I think?
    • I’ve already had a lot to say about this in a series of blog posts earlier this year. You can see links to all of them in the last post, called “Navigating Open Pedagogy part 2.”
    • What are the relationships between open pedagogy, open educational practices, students as producers, and students as partners?
  3. What’s open about open pedagogy?
    • What does “open” seem to mean, such that it can cover open access, open data, open science, open government, open pedagogy… (this is a gigantic topic in and of itself; I won’t be able to do it justice but I’ll make a start)
    • Does that fit the views of open pedagogy from (1) and (2)?
    • does any of this change our views of “open pedagogy”?

Oh my…now that I write that out, I think: this is going to be too much for a one-hour talk plus Q&A afterwards. This could probably be a book. Oh well…let’s see what comes out of my brainstorming and whether it’s feasible.

In this post I am just collating a few examples of what people have called “open pedagogy” activities in classes.

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Join us virtually at our session at #OpenEd17

laptop on knees of a person with a dog sitting next to them on a couch

Laptop & dog image licensed CC0 from pixabay.com

 

I am working with a fantastic group of people on a session at the upcoming Open Education Conference (Oct. 11-13, Anaheim, California), and we are looking for people who want to join us virtually.

Our session info:

Friday, Oct. 13, 3:30-4:25 pm Pacific time (California)

How can we destroy the open education movement? Conversations about ethics.

Openness is a process that requires and benefits from critical reflection. We believe that facilitating and stimulating critical discussion/debate about the contours and direction of the open education movement (OEM) is essential to its flourishing. In this spirit, the proposed session is intended as a space for participants to unearth and critically explore timely, perhaps uncomfortable questions that may not be at the surface of what we are doing as individuals or as collaborators within the OEM. The facilitators in this session do not have answers. Rather, we host an unconventional, interactive format designed to expose difficult topics and support innovative interventions. The session format supports both in-person and virtual (online) attendees working together on outlining and discussing pressing ethical questions in the OEM. This session allows participants to engage in a critical conversation that is liberating, paradigm challenging, constructive, and inspiring.

Session organizers/facilitators (the following list is those who have been active in planning during the last few meetings):

  • Karen Cangialosi
  • Robin DeRosa
  • Gill Green
  • Christina Hendricks
  • Rajiv Jhangiani
  • Jamison Miller
  • Tara Robertson
  • Scott Robison

Tara and I will not be onsite, but rather joining virtually.

We are looking for others who would like to join virtually as well

I volunteer with Virtually Connecting, but this isn’t quite the same thing: those conversations are usually live streamed on YouTube and also recorded; this one won’t be either live streamed or recorded. It’s just a matter of getting more voices in the room who couldn’t attend the conference in person.

There will be a bit of introduction to the session, but most of the time will be spent in small groups doing discussions, and we envision the virtual participants (including Tara and I) being one of the small groups. We will also have a discussion with the whole room, including the virtual participants, towards the end of the session.

Might you be interested in joining us? If so, please fill out this form to let me know and I’ll get in touch with you with details! We may have to limit the group to a certain number of people, so first come, first in! :)

Any questions? You could ask me on Twitter: @clhendricksbc

 

 

Use of class time in PHIL 102

I’m teaching PHIL 102, Introduction to Philosophy, Jan-April 2018. I have taught this course many times before (and have blogged about it; see here for posts about the course), and I keep revisiting it and renewing it because I’m never fully satisfied. This year I’m focusing my changes in large part on the question of how best to use class time. See the previous post for some general reflections on that.

Below are some problems I am seeing in PHIL 102 that lead me to wonder about my use of class time and whether I should change it.

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How best to use class time? (11 years later)

photo of a classroom with empty desks and chairs

Classroom by Victor Björkund, licensed CC BY 2.0 on Flickr.

Eleven years ago, during the summer I first started this blog (2006), I wrote a couple of posts about the use of class time: What is class time for? Part 1 and Part 2.

I don’t know whether the fact that I’m still dealing with a version of the same question this many years later means I’m just failing or that it’s a hard problem. I believe the latter, though!

In those posts I wondered what is the best use of the limited time that we have to have students together in a room (if we teach face-to-face courses, that is). What I was used to from my own courses, and what I did when I first started teaching, was to use that time to: (1) do a lecture in which I explain the assigned readings, clarifying complicated points, heading off potential misunderstandings, and then also either offering a critique or inviting students to offer critiques; and also (2) often I would find ways to engage students in a discussion of some philosophical question. This latter would be either the whole class together (depending on the size of the class), or small groups.

Even in 2006, my third year at UBC (my sixth year of teaching after the PhD), I was wondering about (1). Not that I think that is a bad thing to do, but I was wondering how much time I should spend on that, because:

  • Why should students spend time reading (let’s face it, often difficult) texts when they can come to class and get it explained by the prof?
  • My conception of philosophy, especially for students who may take one or two philosophy classes but won’t be majors, is that it could go beyond reading writings by others and discussing them. I think philosophy is valuable and useful beyond the academy, and doing courses in which all students do is read what others have said and critique it can give a narrow view of what philosophy and philosophical activity are and could be. That’s what professional philosophers do, but most students in my 100 level courses won’t become professional philosophers.
  • Does it really help students learn how to understand and critique complicated arguments if the instructor usually does it for them? Some modeling is necessary, of course, but more practice than I used to give (and frankly, more than I currently give) could be pedagogically useful.

Revisiting the question

Now, here I am in 2017, still addressing a variant of the same question: what is the best use of that limited face-to-face time? What do we need to be in the same room together to do, and what can be done without being in the same room together? (The success of many online courses says there may be a great deal that can be done separately, asynchronously, online).

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Join the CC open education platform!

Over the past couple of months I’ve been involved with a new Creative Commons initiative, the Open Education Platform. I first learned about the new CC platforms from a Virtually Connecting session with Cable Green and Regina Gong, at the Creative Commons Global Summit in April 2017. That’s where the first draft of the CC Open Education Platform Working doc was created (we are now on version 2). This is an exciting initiative that has the potential to connect people from many parts of the world to make progress on important goals. Yes, many people are already doing this, but for me, I’ve mostly been working with a relatively small group of people from only certain parts of the world, and this is connecting me with more; one of the explicit goals of the platform is to ensure that we are including people from many different geographical areas.

Here is an invitation letter that was recently sent out to many open ed and OER email lists. Please see the letter and links for more information about the CC Platforms, the Open Ed platform, and how to get involved!

Greetings Open Education Colleagues:

In early 2017, the Creative Commons Global Network (CCGN) completed a consultation process of renewing and reorganizing itself to support a strong and growing global movement. The year-long process resulted in the CCGN Global Network Strategy. Part of the new strategy is to establish defined areas of focus, or “platforms,” which will drive CC’s global activities. Platforms are how we organize areas of work for the CC community, where individuals and institutions organize and coordinate themselves across the CC Global Network.

In the spirit of openness and to effectively strategize, these platforms are open to all interested parties working in the platform area and adjacent spaces. That’s why Creative Commons invites you to join the CC Global Network Open Education Platform!

WHY join?

  • Stay connected to global actions in open education resources, practice, and policy.
  • Identify, plan and coordinate multi-national open education, practices and policy projects to collaboratively solve education challenges with an amazing group of open education leaders from around the world.
  • Secure funding (from Creative Commons and other funding sources) for the open education projects we collectively select.
  • Contribute to global perspectives on open education to strengthen advocacy worldwide.
  • Connect your country / region to global open education initiatives.
  • Be on the forefront in implementing Creative Commons’ global network strategy.
  • Meet annually, in-person, at the Creative Commons Summit with members of the CC Open Education Platform to celebrate successes, share best practices, and plan for the next year.
  • Explore, practice, and share innovative methods for inclusive and open engagement with educators, learners and governments around the world..

WHO should join?

  • Open education advocates working in the areas of open educational resources, open educational practices, and/or open education policy.

WHAT are we working on right now?

  • Reaching the right people (you!) to build a strong open education platform.
  • Developing decision making and engagement structures.
  • Defining the goals and projects the CC Open Education Platform will pursue.

 

Joining the CC Open Education Platform is easy and free:

 

  • Sign up for IM (Slack or IRC):

 

      • Slack: sign up: (it will send an invitation email), then sign up to the #cc-openedu channel
      • IRC: to join the #creativecommons-openedu IRC channel, connect via Freenode.

 

 

  • Attend and participate in the monthly meetings.
    • The next meeting is October 18: 8:00pm / October 19: 9:00am (PDT, UTC -7).
    • Note: every meeting has two different times – so everyone can attend one of the meetings during local daylight hours.

 

Please join the e-mail list and IM channel, introduce yourself and we’ll see you at the next meeting!

Grading rubrics in philosophy

This is a quick post designed to collect links to grading rubrics in philosophy, for the sake of putting them together in one place for graduate student TAs in our department to refer to if they want to see some examples.

Here is a recent version of a grading rubric for essays that I use in my courses, including Introduction to Philosophy and an interdisciplinary course called Arts One. I’m including a PDF version and also an MS Word version in case anyone wants to use and edit it (Word is often easier to edit). It is licensed CC BY, which means you can use it and change it if state that it’s adapted from mine as the original source.

Hendricks Philosophy Paper Rubric (PDF)

Hendricks Philosophy Paper Rubric (MS Word)

 

Daily Nous had a post in May 2017 with what they called “An impressively detailed philosophy paper grading rubric,” by Micah T. Lewin.

 

 

Mara Harrell of Carnegie Mellon has created this rubric (MS Word) for marking philosophy essays, which is even more detailed than the one above.

 

This paper marking rubric by Melissa Jacquart includes point values for each cell, which is also an option. Giving points for each part of the rubric can make marking quicker, though it also be somewhat problematic because it’s hard to include every aspect of what makes a good paper in a rubric, and sometimes it’s how things work together that leads to a better essay even if some parts are not as strong as one might like.

 

The Teach Philosophy 101 website has a list of rubrics (including some of the above) that has some not only for grading essays, but also for other kinds of assignments.

 

I’d be happy to hear about other rubrics not on this list!