Winni Zhang is the Open Education Project Manager at SPARC along with Hailey Babb and Aishah Abdullah. Their goal was to speak about best practices with students in open education. The panelists all have experience in student government and leadership. Zhang spoke from the perspective of experiences with a large public institution. Collecting data was the first step Zhang took to learn about textbook use on their campus. The survey they used had a dozen or more questions to learn about textbook costs on their campus as stated by the students. Zhang mentioned that about 87% of student responses listed cost as a barrier to academic work. The second step Zhang listed was building a plan, and again this was done with students after collecting data. With this, the last step stated was debunking myths using data. Babb’s experience is from Canada, and their three steps were campaigning, advocating, and empowering. I didn’t know that Canada has such a robust framework for student government that includes protected time and space. Babb described the progression from campaigning to advocating to changes in policy. They spoke about advocacy and speaking to policymakers and lobbyists. Babb’s advice was to help students feel empowered. Abdullah spoke about a community college perspective of student leadership. Their experience was in a very diverse student body. Abdullah described working with people from different backgrounds and being empathetic. “Work with admin… not against,” was one quote from Abdullah that I learned. They recommended bringing students in and student government when possible. They provided numerous examples and experience about how student leadership helped change and drive new strategies for open education.
