Open Educational Practices (OEP)

Co-design describes a form of participatory pedagogy used by instructors, as well as the expectation that students are be active agents of their learning.

Some resources to support co-design are shared below. These resources are shared by the team involved in teaching the Ethics and Technology class, part of the leading and learning an a digital age four course program offered through the Werklund School of Education. 

• Open Readiness Rubrics: These two rubrics, created by Verena Roberts, can be used for both formative assessment and summative assessment.
• Using Pressbooks to Create Collaborative Open Textbooks: This resource, created by Jordanne Christie, provides helpful tips for using Pressbooks with students.

Co-designing an open book with students presents challenges and opportunities for students to create, give/receive feedback, edit, and publish an open work. Here are some tools that provide more than one option for students to take a scaffolded approach to such an assignment:

1. Create a digital outline, web or map to explore a topic/research question: Ask students to create a digital representation of their research project, and explain in a blog post.
   
   There are many digital tools to support this type of exercise, see some examples below. Students can also be asked to critically reflect on the tools they choose to use, and to interrogate any ethical and/or pedagogical issues that the tool presents.
   • LucidChart
   • Miro
   • Google Apps
   • Wakelet
   • Mindmeister
   • Trello
      
2. Develop a one-minute pitch to present their idea to peers and instructor(s): Ask students to articulate their question and approach to the assignment in a short pitch (either pre-recorded or live). Students can receive valuable feedback from the class in the form of oral or written questions and comments.
    
3. Create a draft using student's choice of digital tool. Providing more than one option increases student choice and agency. See below chart for some options. Regardless of the tool students use, the instructor may wish to require drafts to be uploaded to the course management system for easy access. Additionally, for consistency between student works, the class may wish to adopt a style guide for all works.  
    
4. Choose a digital tool that allows the student to receive feedback on their draft. Depending on the tool chosen in step three, students will need to use a corresponding editing/commenting tool. See chart below. 
   
   See the section on feedback loops to provide support for students in giving and receiving feedback.
    
5. Present final draft to class. Each student provided with approximately five minutes to present their idea to the class.
    
6. Decide whether to include their work in the OER. All students have the option to include or exclude their work from the final, openly-accessible version.

Digital tools for creation and feedback

This chart assumes that the final output will be published on the Pressbooks platform, but allows for choice in creating, giving/receiving feedback, and editing.

About these resources

These resources were gathered by Dr. Verena Roberts, instructor for Ethics and Technology course, and Nicole Neutzling, TA. The fall 2020 offering of the course featuring a co-design process was supported by a University of Calgary Teaching and Learning Grant, entitled Examining the Use of Open Pressbooks for Student Engagement and Learning through Co-Design Participatory Pedagogical Processes. The team is comprised of Barbara Brown, Verena Roberts, Michele Jacobsen, Christie Hurrell, Mia Travers-Hayward, and Nicole Neutzling.