 Leanne, you're muted. There we are. Sorry about that. Are you seeing my first slide there? Yes, great. Okay, so hello everybody, and thanks for joining me today. As Willema said, I'm Leanne Perriman, I'm a senior lecturer at the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University in the UK. Now, as we all know, all education sectors globally have faced unprecedented challenges and changes over recent months. Some sectors have had to almost wholly reinvent the ways in which they deliver teaching and learning at speed and with reduced human resource. Now, the impact on students of all ages has been undeniable and extensive. I'm no surprise that a large scale ongoing study by the Mental Health Foundation in the UK found that 18 to 24 year olds are the most likely segments of the population to report loneliness, hopelessness, not coping and suicidal thoughts. Facing what they call a triple whammy of curtailed education, diminished your prospects and reduced social contact. The approach with which I've chosen to open my presentation focuses on the strengthening of communities in a time of crisis. And almost a year into the pandemic now seems a good time to stand back, work together as a community of open educators and plans for the future, albeit an uncertain one in many ways. It's a good time to review the different ways in which teaching and learning can be made more equitable and open educational practices and pedagogies can help. But as I'll explain shortly though, openness and equity don't necessarily go in hand in hand. So in this session I want to focus specifically on the affordances and challenges of open pedagogy. And as is customary with presentations such as this I'll start with some definitions. So there are many definitions of open pedagogy. But amongst the common elements are learners having autonomy over what and how to learn. And it focuses on connecting learners with the world outside of formal course bridging formal and informal learning context. And it focuses on learners and educators using creating remixing and sharing where we are often collaboratively focus on renewable assessment whereby learners create and openly share their own assessment tasks and an overarching commitment to social justice and educational equity and a pedagogy of care. And I think at its best, open pedagogy is about care, compassion and connection with others. It's about flexibility and freedom and about breaking down hierarchies and having equal dialogues between learner and educator and between learners in the wider world. However, for some learners, the autonomy, open online connectedness, creative freedom and emphasis on self determination of open pedagogy can feel very uncomfortable. And it can exacerbate or even cause mental health issues and can exclude students from participating in teaching and learning activities that ironically are intended to increase equity. But a careful approach to the design of teaching learning and assessment activities and a close attentiveness to learners needs can help mitigate this. Now, in this presentation, you'll hear voices for two groups of students. The first are students on the Open University postgraduate module technology enhanced learning foundations and futures. H880 for short. And that's part of the OU's masters in online distance education. And while the masters is actually being withdrawn, this module is continuing. The module models open educational practices through the use of entirely open assets such as images, video and audio resources. It has some openly licensed weeks, embraces connectedness, free paying learners study a MOOC alongside open learners. In Twitter chats, they explore personal learning networks, involves learners in open practices, they remix content and share it publicly, they create renewable assessments. There's an overarching focus on social justice and transformative education. Learner autonomy is embedded throughout the module, and there's an ongoing reflection for learners. Now the second set of students are studying one of the OU's first post postgraduate micro credential courses, teacher development, embedding mental health in the curriculum which I produced with my OU colleague Kate Plister. And in that course we included a section on open pedagogy and its connections for mental health and well being. And we had a lot of feedback from learners in the course discussion areas, reporting on experiments with using open pedagogy in their own settings. From primary schools through to nursing training and universities. And some of the comments and ideas give a real insight into the possibilities and constraints real educators are facing in real classrooms and I'll share a few with you today. So, in the next few slides, I'll go through some of the aspects of open pedagogy looking at the positive impacts of learners and also some of the challenges. I'll start with the emphasis on learning autonomy. And as we've seen, empowerment and autonomy are at the heart of open pedagogy, which prioritizes giving learners the autonomy to choose what and how they learn. And learner empowerment and autonomy can also have a huge impact in supporting learner mental health and well being, increasing motivation and improving study outcomes. And in contrast, this empowerment unequal relationships feeling for powerlessness and a sense of education is something being done to learners can have a really negative impact on learners attainment and mental health. Open pedagogy offers learners empowerment and autonomy through practices, including the co creation and open sharing of resources and the design of renewable assessment and by reimagining the relationship between educator and learner. The freedom and choice that results for learners can be thrilling and very, very stimulating, but it can also be really scary for some learners, especially those with low self esteem and anxiety or who lack confidence. So what can be done at this point, I want to make reference briefly to the universal design for learning framework, which I think offers an equitable way of embedding open pedagogy in teaching and learning. So, some of you may already be familiar with the universal design for learning or UDL. The framework was initially developed in the 1990s and has flexibility at its core. The related guidelines which elaborate on the framework research informed and are constantly being revised to incorporate new pedagogies. So learner autonomy on the learner's terms is a central concern across the UDL framework, hence its compatibility with open pedagogy. And according to UDL equity should be designed into all teaching and learning to meet the needs of all learners. And that is through providing multiple means of engagement, aligning with learners interest, challenging them appropriately and motivating them to learn through multiple means of representation of learning materials giving learners various ways of acquiring information and knowledge, and through multiple means of action and expression and learning. So that's providing learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know. So, that's a flexibility is at its core. The key features of open pedagogy is an emphasis on connecting learners with the wider world beyond the formal classroom. And this is great potential for supporting study outcomes and well-being, giving opportunities for learners to feel part of communities beyond those in their institution, and thereby enhancing their sense of belonging and offering opportunities for peer support too. The sense of belonging can make it easier to develop meaningful and positive relationships with others and participate in shared endeavors to pursue common goals and develop support networks. If someone feels they don't fit in, they're less likely to have support networks to draw on and can feel anxious about any disconnect between their values and those of others. Students who have a sense of belonging tend to be more resilient, better able to handle personal learning-related challenges, and more autonomously motivated, and more willing to ask for support from peers, educators and others. Now, time when physical connections with others are difficult, online connections and collaborations particularly valuable can help combat social isolation and known in this too. Collaboration can also be problematic though, especially for people with social anxiety, that's a persistent fear of social situations in which a person is exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others. And those situations can lead to a panic attack. And group work and collaborations can be unbearable for people with social anxiety. And one way for open educators to mitigate against this is by following the principles of UDL and carefully planning collaboration-related activities and providing learners with multiple options for such work, including the option to actually opt out all together. And for learners with social anxiety, graded exposure techniques can also be a helpful way of educators planning collaborative activities. And that might involve collaborative tasks being broken down into small manageable chunks. And learners then take small steps to begin with a gradually build up to the bigger task. A further challenge with open online collaboration is the safety aspects involved. And this is really serious. Way back in 2015, Savasa Heli Singh was warning us to be cautious about seeing openness as universally good. And she explained that open is not good for everyone. The hype around open while well intentioned is also unintentionally putting many people in harm's way. And they turn, end up having to endure so much. Students with anxiety and other mental health issues can be particularly vulnerable to trolling, hate speech, cyber violence and other forms of online abuse. And they find it particularly difficult to cope. Now, cyber violence is incredibly widespread. And much of it is directed at women replicating offline cultures of violence and misogyny. The Indian NGO IT for Change explained that the cloak of online invisibility encourages patriarchal attitudes of entitlement over women, resulting in a toxic disinhibition in the online public fear, lowering threshold for sexist and misogyny speech and behavior. Now, fear of cyber violence can lead to a fear of speaking out and that has implications for an open connected approach that's mentioned with open pedagogy. One learner on our course, H880 explained, in my country, many men still believe the internet is their domain and women shouldn't be participating alongside them. I've taken part in open discussions before and had terrible experience, threats, abuse, real hatred from a standpoint of initially feeling confident and excited about making connections across the world. I now feel fearful and out of my depth. I'm happy to participate in closed discussion forum that feels scared about doing something more openly, especially if I'm required to show my true identity. So educators taking their students to open online spaces have a responsibility to support the students development of safe online participation skills. And that's something that will actually benefit all learners, especially in an age of surveillance capitalism as well. And following the principles of universal design for learning and offering alternative ways of achieving a course is learning outcomes, other than open online participation is really essential bearing in mind the risks some learners are facing. True freedom includes the freedom to opt out. So a lack of up to date technology and unreliable or slow in connect connections can also be barriers to equitable participation in teaching and learning activities that involves connecting with the wider world. And this quote from a student from Nigeria is typical. He says, a big challenge is my lack of access to internet data on a daily basis. I've no regular job to be certain of data access is annoying stressing and agitating experience to be aware of your data inspiring. Okay, in the next few hours and can't be used to access what you want. You paid money to get nothing. Other students talked about the fact that they need to prioritize and online discussion is often below on the list of things that they prioritize. Using and co creating and showing we are is also a core aspect of pedagogy and is a powerful tool for enhancing that well and learn a well being an improving education equity and study outcomes. There's a wealth of high quality open content that can be adapted to local needs and better align learning with learners interests and preferences and to allow them to be represented in course resources and increasing the relevance of resources could support identity and motivation and increase self esteem and increase motivation. And also, when learners are given the autonomy to search for we are that are relevant to their own interests, and which will help them to achieve the course learning outcomes. This can also be very motivating and can help self esteem learners on our embedding mental health micro credential had been experimenting with the co creation of we are across multiple sectors, producing posters tool kits revision guide, additional resources and books that were then openly shared and that was really, really hardening, but for some learners, it will be necessary for educators to scaffold the necessary skills to avoid the activity, causing stress and anxiety. A barrier here, this is one of our 80 students saying that a lack of skill in creating we are and also like a software has prevented them from doing co creation and creation of we are other students produce beautiful work and it's clear they've got sophisticated image editing programs. So, again, offering a choice of activities is important here. Now finally, we come to renewable assessment, whereby learners complete assessment tasks that are contributing valuable knowledge and resources to the world, rather than those generating disposable outputs only read by their tutor. Learners might also design their own assessment tasks. The renewable assessment has huge potential to support learner well being in its emphasis on learning autonomy on learners have control of their learning and on learners having the opportunity to design assessment that fits with their preferences and interest, and the possibilities for increasing learner self esteem and motivation are considerable. Learners on the embedding mental health micro credential reported back on their experience with renewable assessment. And I had set first year nursing students the assessment task of making a book with covering self care strategies relevant to nurses in the pandemic for sharing within and beyond the institution. Another learner who was teaching sports and physical education was experimenting with asking learners to make videos demonstrating swimming strokes and other sport techniques, videos that could be shared as open resources. Okay, there was a portion amongst primary school educators concerned that the level of independence required by open pedagogy is difficult for young children. But that said, some applications in primary school settings for shared including an assessment whereby students wrote stories for younger children in the school to read. Renewable assessment can be challenging the level level of autonomy involved where learners are asked to design their own assessments can be stressful. And the prospect of sharing the output of an assessment task with a wider world can also cause anxiety. Again, though adopting a UDL approach and offering learners flexibility and the choice of open and regular assessment tasks should help ensure all learners needs are met. So, to conclude, there's a real sense that a mindful UDL informed approach to implementing open pedagogies in ways that support rather than undermine learners freedom, their mental health and their well being is likely to also be an approach that foregrounds educational equity as deeply attentive to students needs. It's important that learners are not excluded by open pedagogies and are able to benefit from their affordances, but on their own terms. There's a need for much more work in this area, especially in the current circumstances. And I hope to have given you some food for thought about some of the issues that need further exploration, and which we can work on together as a community. Thank you for listening. Thank you very much, Leanne. I see a lot of very positive comments about your presentation so I want to share them with you you can read them by yourself later on.