 Hello everybody, welcome, welcome back, and here am I duwlin in my role as as carer and co-chair this afternoon, so forgive the car surroundings, but I am delighted to welcome Dr Leanne Erin from the Open University, which is an amazing institution, I'll show you all know here in the UK. Leanne's going to be talking with us about open to diversity, which is inclusive design. Is that right? Got the right one? No we haven't. That's it Lauren, you superstar behind the scenes. Open pedagogies in a pandemic, that's what we're talking about. Educated perceptions and experiences in diverse contexts, maybe not quite as diverse as Australia. So over to you Leanne, really excited for this, enjoy. Thank you ever so much Lou. So hello everybody and thanks for for joining me today. I hope you're not too disappointed. I'm not in Australia. So we are now. Let's have a look. I'm just like my screen isn't forwarding. So yeah, we're now over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic and during the past 12 months, students and educators across sectors have faced turbulence, uncertainty and unprecedented levels of change with a widespread move to remote and online teaching and learning for varying periods of time. Now, IET, the Institute of Educational Technology at DOEU has helped support this online pivot through the rapid development of microcredentials delivered on the future learn platform. And in the past year, we've actually produced four 15 credit postgraduate courses intended to support both educators who are new to online teaching and those already teaching online. And we're just starting production on our fifth microcredential that's called online teaching, embedding, social, race and gender related equity. So these microcredentials are all paid for courses and they all include elements of open pedagogy and their design and delivery. And they also introduce students who tend to be educators or education professionals to the principles of open pedagogy and students are encouraged to consider how they could use open pedagogy themselves and also to try out some strategies and then share the outcomes with their peers. And this presentation reports on some of these students' experiences and perceptions, drawing on some of the course discussions and Skype interviews to learn how both educators who are new to online teaching and openness and those are more experienced in this area have been using open pedagogies and some of the challenges that they faced. So what do we mean by open pedagogy? Some of you will be very familiar with this already and the terms will be variously defined but there are common elements to most definitions including learners having autonomy over what and how to learn, connecting learners with the world outside formal education, outside a formal course, learners and educators using, co-creating, remixing and sharing where we are. There's renewable assessment whereby learners create and openly share their own assessment tasks. An overarching commitment to social justice and educational equity and pedagogy of care and also ongoing reflection and all of these characteristics feature in our micro credentials to varying extents really. So overall the reaction to open pedagogy amongst our micro credentials learners has been positive and the opportunities for autonomy and empowerment have particular appeal across sectors and across settings seen as quite conducive to motivation and wellbeing. One learner commented, sharing, collaborating the concept of renewable assessment, full autonomy of students, creativity, choice, fun, all make these open pedagogies very positive for students well-being. And another who had shared her plans for giving learners autonomy in writing the objectives for their immunology course commented here, students who have completed the course would be perfect for this project. I'll encourage the students to seek where we are, books, articles and videos to support the new version of the course as well as the development of formative assessments. And another learner who's a secondary school teacher commented since moving to teaching remotely in September. I've tended to take a dim view of online teaching and so have my students. Introducing a pedagogy has given me new ways to help students form connections online and have power over their learning at the time when the move online has been dumped on them. Now, some of our micro-credential students expressed concern about handing over control of aspects of the curriculum to their own learners, worried about issues of quality standards and how students might feel about their peers, the term aspects of the curriculum, rather than the educator. And one commented, some learners might not be comfortable with such a participatory approach and prefer having educators who guide them more with sets and parameters. While I understand the value of participatory approaches, I believe we shouldn't fall into the trap of fully student-designed courses. So, a mix of views there. Moving on to another aspect of open pedagogy, the use, co-creation and sharing of OER. Our own micro-credentials make extensive use of OER and our learners have tended to be more confident about integrating OER into their practice in some way than about involving learners into the design of the curriculum. Many of our micro-credentials learners reported experimenting with the use of OER, co-creating and openly sharing posters, e-books, toolkits and videos and the like. One student who is also a teacher trainer commented, we've been contributing knowledge to the world by creating themed schemes of work. We all selected our own themes so there will be rich resources out there. Another commented, I found OER covering key trans issues in healthcare and I've included these in a resources list for my nursing students to give them a choice about what to focus on when studying patient support. So, a wide variety of subjects and discipline areas. An art teacher amongst our learners said, my GCSE art students have really embraced sharing their work openly. We looked at some image repositories for inspiration and there was a general feeling that some people are not well represented. My students have been sharing their own images, opening licence on Flickr and Onslash and we'll be also looking for other places to share them. Several of our learners were exploring ways in which they could focus sharing on their local communities. One shared the fact that she was teaching Syrian refugees and they produced their own Syrian tales for sharing with their local community. Another student was planning to work together to create a small book about the topic my students have chosen written in English and with an Arabic translation. It's drawing on many experiences from my student's culture. Printed in house has been enjoyed and shared with all in the community. So, we've got quite a wide variety of experiences there. We've heard then quite a bit about the benefits of open pedagogy. So, what are the challenges? Firstly, some learners do need additional support to be able to make the most of open pedagogy and for others, open pedagogy can negatively affect study outcomes and exacerbate or even cause mental health problems and at times put students at risk of harm. Now, one of our microcredentials learners who had experimented with open pedagogy in a further education setting suggested that while adapting somewhere we are could be a realistic endeavour. Editing textbooks will be sharing could be a step too far. Students would require maturity and confidence to take on a task of modifying open textbooks. This would also need to be carefully edited and moderated to ensure that their revised content is accurate or appropriate. Objecting student contributions if they don't meet standards may have a negative impact on esteem and wellbeing. Another, had this summary, open pedagogy offers various advantages especially for learners who want to take more responsibility and a more active role in their education. The issue arises for students who are not capable of such a level of autonomy and who are not able to get motivated and manage themselves in order to keep learning effectively. Open pedagogy should be seen as an important part of a varied array of options which learners can take advantage of should it become clear that it suits their learning better than any other method. Open pedagogy can be crucially helpful as well as very damaging to an individual's wellbeing. Think about how to address this balance between benefits and challenges. In IET's own courses, microcredentials included, we use open pedagogies as part of a process of learning design informed by Universal Design for Learning, or UDL for short. You may or may be familiar with UDL and so you'll know that it has flexibility and learner autonomy on learner's own terms at its core. According to UDL, equity should be designed into all teaching learning to meet the needs of all learners by providing multiple means of engagement with the subject, learning environment, multiple means of representation of learning materials, various ways of acquiring information and knowledge, and multiple means of action and expression in learning to provide learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know. Even from our own courses and from our students' experiences with UDL informed Open Pedagogy, it suggests that following UDL guidelines and offering Open Pedagogy as part of a range of choices for learners can help ensure that Open Pedagogies can be used equitably and very importantly on learners' own terms. This slide is just a page from the very comprehensive UDL guidelines website that is worth exploring. Moving on to another aspect of Open Pedagogy, connecting learners with the wider world beyond the formal classroom. This has got great potential for supporting study outcomes, it gives opportunities for learners to feel part of communities beyond their institution. It can enhance their sense of belonging, it can offer opportunities for peer support and networking, and it has particular relevance at a time where in-person social connections are being factored due to the pandemic, and isolation has been right as we all know. Amongst our micro-credential students, the connectedness of Open Pedagogy appeared particularly popular with educators teaching vocational subjects and with trainers in the private sector. We had a really wide range of learners on these courses, and I've experimented with running a Twitter chat with students who've got conversations with professionals in their field. It took a long time to set up to encourage the professionals to take part. It's difficult to know how many students then went on to use Twitter for their personal networks, but I think it's worth pursuing. Another one of our students in industry added traditionally our LMS has often been used as a repository of content rather than a platform for engagement and collaboration. I'm hoping in time we can move to a place of connections whereby Open Pedagogy helps to promote more authentic connections between students, students and educators, and importantly students, educators and industry, and I'm hopeful this will drive a more open and collaborative learning culture across our organisation. Collaboration can be problematic, though especially for people with social anxiety of persistent fear of social situations in which a person is exposed to unfamiliar people or possible scrutiny with others. Again, one way for educators to mitigate against this is by following the principles of UDL and providing learners with multiple options for such work, including the option to opt out that should always be there. Also, for learners with social anxiety, graded exposure can be helpful technique, so that could be social or collaborative tasks being broken into smaller manageable steps and learners taking small steps at a time, building up gradually to a bigger task. Now, still sticking with the challenges, a frequently mentioned challenge relating to Open Pedagogy and especially Open online collaboration is the safety aspect involved. Although it stated 2015, I still find myself returning to this quote from Sarah Saheli Singh. 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 in turn end up having to endure so much. Now, the risks of online participation are well known by ranging from hate speak and online violence, the doxing, the non-consensual sharing of personal information, and statistics for online violence are chilling, absolutely, especially for women and girls. Students with anxiety and other mental health issues can be particularly vulnerable to trolling hate speak, cyber violence and other forms of online abuse, and many find it particularly difficult to cope. For some of our micro-credentials learners, the perceived perils of online collaboration deterred them from implementing open strategies related to connectiveness. One commented, I would consider setting up a website that my pupils could contribute work to, but I wouldn't trust that I could keep it safe from internet trolls or predators of different sorts. Another learner was quite vocal about this. I find many of the methods disturbing and even irresponsible. Taking a class off the university LMS can lead to a lot of risk laden issues. Fear of online abuse can lead to a fear of speaking out altogether, especially for learners in patriarchal cultures, and one of our learners explained this disturbing quote really, the anonymity offered by the internet takes away any filters men may have in the real world. I've had death threats, threats to my family, it's bad enough when you're participating anonymously, but these days a lot of internet might want you to verify your real name. I couldn't expose my students, especially the girls and young women to those dangers. They may be missing out, but it's too much of a risk. So a range of factors there and I think important here is offering choice and a range of options. Another barrier which is quite familiar with I think already is technological barriers, data hardware, software and connectivity. One of our students from Malawi said internet data costs a fortune here, when you connect it's no one unbelievable. I have to prioritize what I do on the internet to be essential things and it's the same for my students probably worse. They would use Facebook to contact their friends, would use their data for that, more than for connecting with people they don't know. Really is one or the other. Another student had found videos that would work well for her medical students. I would like to adapt them, but I hadn't got the skill and felt her computer would grind to a halt. It's difficult enough to unloading them to show to students. A secondary teacher in Zambia tried to introduce the idea of sharing work openly, but students were intimidated by the quality of what they were seeing online. And they struggled to even have a basic computer and can only use open source software and bandwidth issues. So creating LVR was out of reach. Really it's perceived as out of reach. So position is not really an easy one, but I think it can help equitable participation if again a range of ways of participating is offered. Now moving on to renewable assessment. This was an aspect of open pedagogy that our micro credentials were most divided about. Some were concerned about how renewable assessment would fit with their institutions requirements or the requirements of a professional body. And others suggested that autonomy could exacerbate anxiety issues. Some shared some of the things they were doing already. That they were hosting annual dance performances, plays, art photography exhibitions, which were open to staff and advertised to the public. And they formed the assessments for the course, but also added to their CV portfolio and exposure in their chosen career sector. And another thought for Instagram during the pandemic. We've seen this type of approach wide in sports coaching learners hosting an Instagram showing daily workouts, coaching learners creating videos on how to cook various dishes. There was a bit of concern about renewable assessments in a student here saying that the feedback that students may get from the wider world may not be positive and that can affect well-being and mental health. So it certainly can be challenging. Moving on to the final aspect of what our students were sharing with us. The notion of a prestigious economy. This is a month Seema Veneruso talks about a prestigious economy that she identifies in academia. A fear that if you give away your ideas, you'll lose prestige, especially in some hyper-competitive environments. If you aren't paid for something, then you're working valuable. And if you share your ideas and materials freely, then you'll be left with nothing. Someone else will profit through exposure and indeed money. One of our learners said that they had a fear of someone else monetising on your idea once shared, thus gaining all the credits and another. I'm now self-employed in the commercial world so can't have too much openness of my own techniques and creations or else all my best work will be copied. So some of you are quite practical considerations there. And I think we've been hearing that right from the beginning of the idea we are moving over a decade ago. So similar sorts of concerns really. And my presentation has given a bit of a range of views from our micro-convention learners. Given the idea that a mindful approach, UDL-informed approach to intimate and open pedagogies in ways that support rather than undermine learners' freedom and their well-being, is hopefully an approach that will foreground educational equity. And it's important that learners aren't excluded by open pedagogies and are able to benefit from their affordances on their own terms. And we also, as a community, have a role to play in supporting educators in working out the ways of implementing open pedagogies in an equitable way as possible. So pretty much all I have to say and thank you ever so much for listening, for tuning in. Oh, you're welcome. It's been joyful. Sammy White has just said lots to take away from here. Thank you. And I think that probably sums up also loads of really interesting stuff in the chat. And what I really appreciate, a couple of things if I could say, Leanne, one is the complexity with which you've presented that, the depth and richness of it. Thank you so much, so much to think about. And what Anna has said is that this is reminding me that it's a privilege to operate openly in safety. It takes a long time to build confidence in an open presence. And also, you're reminding me how much the job has changed. You know, the pandemic has changed the job forever. So plenty to think about. We're out of time for questions, but that was perfect. I wouldn't have wanted it a second shorter. Have a fabulous afternoon. Thanks for coming, everybody. Nom nom nom.