Editors Note: This post by Maya Vanderberg is part of our series on Open Pedagogy and provides insight into how participating in Open Pedagogy projects as both a student and a teacher's assistant offered benefits beyond traditional assignments.
Author:
Maya Vanderberg
Students are taught to passively receive knowledge while educators assume the active position of disseminating knowledge. However, other types of pedagogy exist like experiential learning, service learning, or open pedagogy. Open pedagogy involves “students in active, constructive engagement with content, tools and services in the learning process, and promote learners’ self-management, creativity and working in teams” (Geser, 2007).
I have had the privileged position of experiencing open pedagogy as both a student and a teaching assistant. Standing on both sides of the proverbial fence has shown me how enriching it can be for both parties to flip this dynamic on its head. It builds an appreciation for both the gifting and receiving of knowledge and fosters a powerful solidarity between students and professors. Going forward I will elaborate on my experience as both a student and a teaching assistant taking part in open pedagogy: conquering my own initial doubts, working through the creative process, and reflecting on my work’s impact on me, those around me, and the greater community.
In the typical classroom experience, students are primarily expected to be absorbers of material. They attend lectures, take notes, and eventually regurgitate that material by answering questions on an exam. Students’ textbooks are rarely resources that they feel any level of connection to, beyond their ability to answer the questions asked by professors. Students are also rarely given any insight into the creation of these questions. It is a simple—but severely limiting—relationship that is shared between students, educators, and the resource material.
By contrast, the model of open pedagogy demands that these relationships change. Students are generators of material, educators take on more of a supporting role, and the material becomes a more accessible, active, and changeable being. This altering of roles can be daunting; I found that apprehension and some initial self-doubt were natural and inevitable parts of the resource creation process.
My introduction to open pedagogy was during my freshman year of college, during an Introduction to Sociology class. In place of a traditional midterm, we were assigned chapters from the textbook and worked collaboratively to create exam questions that students in future semesters could use. When the project was first introduced, the student response was one of hesitant enthusiasm and, primarily, confusion. The project was unlike anything we had created before. Our work had would have a life beyond the end of the semester. At first, many of us did not see ourselves as qualified to create professional grade material. The idea that our finished product would be used for years to come added a certain pressure to the work.
I worked through some similar anxieties when I was given the opportunity to write a piece on homelessness in the Windham/Willimantic community for the openly licensed textbook, (Homelessness in Willimantic). Creating resources to be available to fellow and future students gave me the first sense of my own professional legacy. I wanted my efforts to inspire community action and spread knowledge for years after the textbook’s release.
In both cases, the excitement of using our own creative efforts to create something with real world impact outweighed any hesitancy. As students, we had to set aside any doubts about our own capabilities to do the work, using the extra pressure and support of our peers as tools to our advantage. This proved to be effective. The combination of peer review and the knowledge that other students would engage with our work helped us create portfolio-worthy content.
The attitudes of students during the OER creation process varied, as perspectives of those working in large groups often do.
Some students relished the opportunity to work collaboratively to create their materials and found the additional pressure of their work’s purpose to be inspiring. Those with more functional groups were able to peer review and create content together, lightening the workload for each other in the process.
Others had a more challenging time completing their midterms. Some dealt with a disproportionate workload, as they had group members who declined to participate. Others had more general difficulties working collaboratively. One student complained that by creating these supplemental materials, he was being exploited by providing free labor. These challenges, while frustrating, helped students develop advanced communication skills to complete their work. Much of the work in the professional world is collaborative, especially the creation of any written and published material. Reflecting on this experience in conversation with some other students, we concluded that both the advantages and challenges of group work were not only educational, but representative of professional work in a way that many people found helpful.
The OP midterm exam also proved to have value beyond its ability to serve as a resource for future students. The exercise itself was an effective midterm assessment because it allowed us, as students, to approach the material in a new way. To complete it, we had to generate questions that showed a total understanding of our chapter. Question writing involves studying vocabulary and concepts and creating situations that accurately depict those concepts. Additionally, the unorthodox nature of the assignment broke up the flow of our work in a unique, yet educational way.
I spent my freshman year finding my proverbial footing as a student and experimenting with OER in my Introduction to Sociology course. The connection that I found to the material as well as my own aspiration to do research on homelessness led me to work with Eastern Connecticut State University Sociology professor, Dr. Nicolas Simon, to create an additional piece, ‘Homelessness in Willimantic’ to be included in an openly licensed textbook that Dr. Simon was developing. The experience of creating this piece was one that I found incredibly rewarding, and my continued interest in openly licensed material led me to work with Dr. Simon in the spring of my sophomore year as a teaching assistant for his Sociological Theory course. I felt fortunate to be able to guide students who were creating this material, as someone who had just recently navigated many of its challenges myself.
The pandemic forced many classes to move online, including the Sociological Theory course. This meant that the work that these students did was even more self-directed than what I had done during my freshman year. This was concerning to me at first, as I knew how vital it had been, in my experience, to work collaboratively and communicate often while developing this material. I encouraged students to communicate all their questions and trust themselves in their ability to write quality material. Much of my work as a teaching assistant shifted to a supporting role, using email to answer students’ questions about formatting and narrowing the focus of their content, as well as some confusion about submission coordination. Providing a pillar of support to the students was exciting. There was a sense of purpose associated with helping students create this material. It felt like we were part of a movement, in which the end goal was spreading our knowledge and making educational resources more accessible. When I was creating openly licensed materials myself, the way forward was always to ask for support and feedback from my fellow students or my teaching assistant. The power of this work lies in the collaboration between all members of the academic community.
The opportunity to create content that could be shared with other students for years to come was one of incalculable value . Looking back on my own experience, I now possess an ability to analyze material more critically and creatively, as well as write in a style that is more professional and informative than I could before. The skill of creating a concise and focused summary of extensive bodies of research and theory has absolutely helped me since the completion of these various projects. Other students I spoke with as a TA expressed excitement at the idea of having a piece of their own creative content used in this way. One student expressed that while the control they exercised over the content was intimidating, to follow through and see their work truly valued was rewarding. It exceeded the expectations that most of my fellow undergraduate students and I had for ourselves. Our uses of open pedagogy have made the students involved more competent writers , effective collaborators, and self-assured scholars.
Geser, G. (ed.) 2007. Open educational practices and resources: OLCOS roadmap 2012. Salzburg, Austria: Salzburg Research & EduMedia Group. Available from http://www.olcos.org/cms/upload/docs/olcos_roadmap.pdf. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7238/rusc.v4i1.295
Maya Vanderberg (she/they) is a junior at Eastern Connecticut State University, working towards a Bachelor's in Sociology and Pre-Law. She works on campus in the Dean of Arts and Science's office and she is the Public Relations Officer for the Honors Club. Maya is currently developing her undergraduate thesis on the effects of criminalizing statutes on homeless community members. She has been involved with a myriad of Open Educational Resource projects throughout her undergraduate career and maintains a passion for promoting the accessibility of educational materials.
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