Today we did two RLOE sessions about Open Pedagogy and student choice & voice. They were a lot of fun. The student panels were excellent! Tonight, we watched the Open Ed 2021 session entitled “OERs & Faculty Learning Communities” with panelists Jenna Steigerwalt, Ella Smith-Justice, and James King. During the transition to remote online teaching in March 2020, the University of Pikeville implemented several changes including a “hyperflex model of teaching, 8-week courses, and most significantly, no-cost resources for all students.” The panelists spoke about how they also created learning communities led by a faculty Learning Designer to share ideas and revise courses during the summer of 2020. These groups shared ideas and support that helped with the course transitions. Some of the challenges that were shared were the difficulty of letting go of traditional assignments and learning about OER. The speakers mentioned this was a relatively new concept on their campus. Migrating their courses to Canvas was one of the activities that required not only using technology but also thinking about course design and activities. With the help of their library staff, instructors searched for and implemented the use of free resources. When needed, learning designers and faculty thought about other options or ways of sharing existing materials. There was a lot of manual searching and curating of resources, it appears. Learning designers from the learning communities were given guidelines and timelines to provide feedback to instructors with a focus on clarifying for learners. Some learning designers were hands-off and followed up with their groups when needed. The groups allowed a sense of camaraderie and different perspectives. The group of learning designers was also able to share resources, ideas, and experiences. Members of the Faculty Learning Communities shared stories, syllabus language, and resources. The communities offered information and a support network. The learning designers nudged instructors, however, they all noted that they didn’t direct paths of work, for example. Connecting with the members of the group also required accepting and supporting a variety of priorities. They mentioned that at their institution they went back to sixteen weeks and kept OERs this fall. I had watched a previous session at this institution. However, this session provided a glimpse of the challenges students faced and how a often complicate the assignments and overload students with information.
