Topic 4: Defining OER-enabled Pedagogy

After reading the article ” Defining OER-enabled Pedagogy” (Wiley, D. & Hilton, J. 2018), I found many interesting points, the most impressive of which was the introduction of the concept of ‘renewable assignments’ by the author. The opposite of ‘renewable assignments’ is ‘disposable assignments’, and most of the assignments we experience in our courses are ‘disposable assignments’, exemplified by the essay. As a university student, writing a paper is a common thing. The author mentions that the biggest problem with ‘disposable assignments’ like essays is that they take a long time for the student to complete, and a long time for the teacher to read and grade each one; but when it’s all over, neither the student nor the teacher cares about the essay anymore (Wiley, D. & Hilton, J. 2018). In fact, this is not all, as essays are often ‘disposable assignments’ that take up a lot of points in a course, and they are usually dues at the end of a course, which leads many students to pay less attention to other assignments; and students mostly choose to work on one of them after most of the course has been taught. This leads to the fact that students’ papers are mainly focused on one part of knowledge or even one point of knowledge, with little involvement in other parts or points of knowledge. While there are many courses that choose to open up the submission of papers at the beginning of the course and encourage students to submit them repeatedly, the results are not as good as one might expect.

‘Renewable assignments’ can be the perfect solution to these problems. Instead of completing their first drafts directly, students can gradually write and refine their assignments based on what they have learned. More importantly, their assignments have value even after the course is over, rather than being ignored or deleted. As the authors say, “providing lasting benefits to the broader community of learners” (Wiley, D. & Hilton, J. 2018).

In addition to that, the four parts of the test mentioned in the article are interesting. Although they seem to be just four simple questions, they do directly test the extent to which the course conforms to the OER pedagogy. Even though they do not directly help the teaching of OER pedagogy, they provide a good foundation and a start, and they can directly inform the teachers and learners about what OER pedagogy is.

Reference

Wiley, D. & Hilton, J. (2018). Defining OER-enabled Pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 19(4).