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Pollak Library

Open Pedagogy

Teaching Practices

The hallmark of open pedagogical practices is involving your students as collaborators in their own learning. You likely already incorporate one or more of these practices in your classroom, but may not have realized it was considered part of open pedagogy. 

These teaching practices include: 

  • incorporating student feedback
  • providing options for learning or assessment 
  • encouraging students to take ownership of their learning
  • providing value to students beyond passing the course
  • sharing with other educators
Examples: 
  • Ask students to help write the course policies or parts of your syllabus
  • Offer students multiple ways to complete an assignment 
  • Ask students to contribute to course content creation. This can include compiling question banks or contributing to collaborative annotations on readings.
  • Teaching skills and utilizing resources that students can use beyond the classroom. This can include creating websites, editing video or audio projects, and authoring portions of an open textbook.

The Open Education Spectrum

No set number of these characteristics or teaching practices defines whether you engage in open pedagogy. Different courses and student groups have different needs. Practices that work well for a class of upper-level students may be inappropriate for the students in an introductory class. 

Open pedagogy is a spectrum- the more practices you implement in your courses, the more deeply you engage with open pedagogy. 

Tips for getting started: 
  • Start small- you don't need to overhaul your entire course at once; you can start by implementing a single practice and then building from there. 
  • Connect with students- build in checkpoints throughout the semester.
  • Be transparent- share with students why you are engaging with open pedagogy, and demonstrate for them the skills you want to see.
  • You don't need to do this alone- collaborate with students, other faculty, librarians, and instructional designers