peer observation of oer re(use)

Peer Observation of OER (Re-)Use

Tita Beaven and Anna Comas-Quinn, The Open University, UK

CALICO, Open Education:Resources and Design for Language Learning University of Notre Dame, 12-16 June 2012

Outline

• A brief introduction to LORO and the OU context

• Peer observation in a blended context• OER use and re-use

Languages at The Open University

• English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Welsh & Chinese (beginners to advanced) to 10000+ language students

• Blended approach: independent study using mixed media and support inc. face-to-face, synchronous and asynchronous online teaching

• Course materials produced centrally, teaching support provided locally

• Course developers and course directors: 45+ academics plus support staff

• Teaching staff: 300+ part-time teachers

A blended learning environment

©2012 Open University

What was the problem?

• Storing and managing resources for teaching (servers, the VLE…)

• Finding out what others are doing

• Avoid reinventing the wheel…(30-40 teachers might be delivering the same course in parallel)

• Sharing resources produced by all colleagues

Languages Open Resources Onlinehttp://loro.open.ac.uk

LORO is about: • ...making all teaching materials for all levels and

languages available to all users,• …making OU tutorial materials available to the

wider languages community,• …allowing users to share their own materials with

the whole languages community, • …starting a change in the way we work (OER,

access, transparency, quality).

What are OER?

• Open educational resources are materials used to support education that may be freely accessed, reused, modified and shared by anyone.(Stephen Downes 2011)

• The creator of the resource indicates that they are for public use and reuse through a Creative Commons license or similar

Teachers are using LORO…

• To find resources for their teaching“I often also check what other teachers have done to teach the same topic or a similar structure”

• To find inspiration and ideas“even if I don’t find anything I can use, it starts the

ideas flowing in my head”

• To standardise their practice and ensure comparability of the student experience

“to make sure the contents covered in my own tutorial are similar to those used by the rest of the course team and tutors”

Benefits of using LORO

• Increased confidence in one’s own practice“Seeing other work enables you to judge your own, and reassures you that you are doing the right thing”

• Freedom to develop other aspects of one’s teaching practice

“It gives us time and space to create some individual styles” “I can concentrate on how I will teach culture or how to teach through the asynchronous forum”

Benefits of using LORO• Value of feedback on one’s work

“gives me an opportunity to gain useful feedback on the work I do”

• … but there are constraints“peer comment should be extended, but the restraints of all our workloads make this a problem”

• Increase quality of teaching materials“sharing the resources I have created with colleagues stimulates me to write very good materials, test them and improve them so that they can be used by someone else. LORO really pushes me to produce better materials”

Quantitative data

• 1.5 million page views to date• 20,000 downloads in the last 6 months• over 1100 registered users • over 2500 resources• 900+ visitors a month from around the world

(data from LORO inbuilt stats and Google analytics)

Success measures

LORO Project, Highly Commended in the Learning Contexts category

OPAL Awards for Quality and Innovation through Open Educational Practices.

“the open is the enemy of the knowable” (Beetham, 2011)

http://www.slideshare.net/SCORE/oer-impact-study-marion-manton-learning-from-oer-research-projects-19th-january-2012

Peer observation of teachingA ‘‘collaborative, developmental activity in which professionals offer mutual support by observing each other teach; explaining and discussing what was observed; sharing ideas about teaching; gathering student feedback on teaching effectiveness; reflecting on understandings, feelings, actions and feedback and trying out new ideas’’. (Bell, 2005, p. 3)

Used in different contexts for different purposes

• as a developmental tool in the training of new teachers or in continuous professional development;

• as a management tool for quality monitoring or evaluation of teachers by their line manager it can be felt to be uncomfortable, intrusive or to curtail academic freedom.

In the context of continuous professional learning, then, some warn that POT should be designed to be “non-judgemental and developmental rather than evaluative and externally required” (Lomas and Nicholls, 2005, Hatzipanagos and Lygo Baker, 2006)‐

The developmental nature of POTFor Cosh (1998) observation is “an invaluable form of staff development”, which can play an important part in ensuring that teachers don’t become “isolated and routinized”, enabling teachers to gain exposure to other teaching styles and approaches.

POT in the context of blended teaching and learning?

• POT needs to be extended to other media where teaching takes place

• It should cover areas such as curriculum design, the creation of teaching materials, online teaching , and the whole range of what teachers do to support learners. (Hatzipanagos and Lygo-Baker 2006, Bennett and Barp, 2008 Swinglehurst et al, 2008).

• In the context of the OU? In the context of LORO?

The 4 Rs

• Reuse – make exact copies• Revise – make adaptations• Redistribute – share copies• Remix – combinations / mashups

See http://creativecommons.orghttp://opencontent.org/blog/archives/tag/4rs

BUT: little visible evidence of this

Use and reuse

19

3

1

3

3

13

1

16

25

Use and reuse of resources from LORO in tutorials Resource used as is

Additional wording before tutorial(student support)

Additional wording during tutorial(student support)

Added images/colours (slide design)

Almost identical resource but changes to the activity

New resource based on existing OER in LORO

New resource based on existing course resource not in LORO

Totally new resource

Reuse of own resource from another set-ting (1)

(1) These were all produced by the same teacher, although in the actual lesson she did not use most of them, and reflected afterwards that she had prepared too many resources for the teaching session.

Knowledge used by teachers when (re)using OER

• subject knowledge• knowledge about the course and the students• technical knowledge, especially about

Elluminate• pedagogic knowledge, both in language

teaching and in teaching online via an audiographic system

• emotional/affective knowledge• knowledge of other resources in LORO, etc.

Newbiggin Hall Scouts http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fallen_tree_-_geograph.org.uk_-_495932.jpg

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Tita BeavenM.C.Beaven@open.ac.uk

Anna Comas-QuinnA.Comas-Quinn@open.ac.uk