Authors: Ambernicole Pfannenstiel, Stephanie Pennucci
Institution: Millersville University
Country: United States
Topic: Connecting Open Education to Primary and Secondary (K-12) Education
Sector: K-12
UNESCO Area of Focus: Building capacity
Session Format: Presentation
Abstract
Quality Education starts with quality teachers who have access to quality educational materials and useful education tools in support of student learning. The work of providing quality education to students must include discussions of equitable access to materials that support student exploration of how they come to know, how they learn about learning. This presentation describes a conference project that expands current work in Open Educational Resources (OER) education and adoption programs like Millersville’s Open Textbook Initiative, Affordable Learning PA, and K-12's Go Open movement to build partnerships between Lancaster County educators, pre-service students at Millersville, and Millersville Faculty working in Open Pedagogy to support students PK-PhD.The Open Education Workshop introduced participants to open educational resources, open digital programs, and zero textbook cost materials that can be adopted in classrooms. Beyond connecting educators with websites that support learning, this Open Education Workshop focused on how open materials and assignments can provide meaningful learning experiences to all students, even with limited digital access. More important for supporting teachers with a wide variety of access to technology and financial support in their districts, this Open Education Workshop fostered community support, and the open sharing of pedagogical innovation to support all learners in Lancaster County.
This presentation describes how to build a capacity of stakeholders with pre-service and in-service educators to create local and global spaces of access and use of OER (UNESCO OER Recommendations). This presentation explains the format of the free conference, how the sessions connected pedagogical theories prevalent in K-12 classrooms to the use of OER, and how the sessions supported educators connecting with equitable access to OER. The presenters describe how bringing together local teachers, librarians, administrators, instructional coaches, faculty, and faculty librarians opens community discussions of affordable teaching and learning materials.
Keywords
OER Workshop, K12 OER, Open Pedagogy
