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In fall 2022, the Open Education Network (OEN) selected 15 teams to participate in the initial cohort of the Certificate in Open Educational Practices (OEP). Teams of one librarian and one faculty member created action plans that enabled them to collaboratively redesign curriculum for accessibility, inclusion, and student-centeredness.
Now in the homestretch, these teams are implementing their action plans at higher education institutions throughout the U.S. We’re catching up with a few teams for a glimpse of their resourcefulness and key takeaways as they engage with open pedagogy. This interview was conducted by Tonia Johnson, Digital Content Strategist for the Open Education Network.
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The team from Iowa State University pairs Abbey Elder, Open Access & Scholarly Communication Librarian, and Sayali Kukday, Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Genetics, Development, and Cell Biology. Abbey and Sayali are currently implementing OEP in an online, asynchronous STEM course, Biology 313: Principles of Genetics, with approximately 150 students enrolled. Welcome, Abbey and Sayali. We appreciate your willingness to share some of your OEP project outcomes, insights, and challenges.
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Sayali and Abbey, it was a pleasure talking with you about your OEP endeavor. Thank you for the inspiration and learning opportunity you’ve shared with us and the open education community.
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In fall 2022, the Open Education Network (OEN) selected 15 teams to participate in the initial cohort of the Certificate in Open Educational Practices (OEP). Teams of one librarian and one faculty member created action plans that enabled them to collaboratively redesign curriculum for accessibility, inclusion, and student-centeredness.
Now in the homestretch, these teams are implementing their action plans at higher education institutions throughout the U.S. We’re catching up with a few teams for a glimpse of their resourcefulness and key takeaways as they engage with open pedagogy. This interview was conducted by Tonia Johnson, Digital Content Strategist for the Open Education Network.
__________________________
The team from Iowa State University pairs Abbey Elder, Open Access & Scholarly Communication Librarian, and Sayali Kukday, Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Genetics, Development, and Cell Biology. Abbey and Sayali are currently implementing OEP in an online, asynchronous STEM course, Biology 313: Principles of Genetics, with approximately 150 students enrolled. Welcome, Abbey and Sayali. We appreciate your willingness to share some of your OEP project outcomes, insights, and challenges.
Let’s start with a short description of Genetics of Variation in Human Skin Color, the student project you’ve assigned in Biology 313.
Sayali: The project Genetics of Variation in Human Skin Color is designed to help students learn genetics concepts including differential gene expression, genetic variation in the human population while also developing critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and creative skills. Connecting the concepts that students are learning in the course with the sociological realities of differences in skin color was a major goal for this project.
The project is divided into five “BioQuests” which build on one another, allowing the students to: (1) reflect on their prior knowledge about the genetics of skin color; (2) learn more about the genetics of skin color; (3) read and summarize research related to skin color; (4) connect the research and scientific topics they have learned to sociological realities that humans face; and finally, (5) bring the aspects of the prior quests that the students found most engaging or interesting into a final learning portfolio which they could elect to share more widely. Students had agency to choose the format of their portfolio (essay or podcast-style), whether they wanted to share their portfolio more widely, the level of anonymity if they chose to do so, and the type of Creative Commons license to apply to their work.
Overall, how have students responded to the idea of a renewable, self-defined project? Enjoying creative freedom? Needing more help or support?
Sayali: It’s hard to answer these questions because we did not explicitly ask them about their perspective on the openness and creativity involved. We’re still going through the feedback survey, but from a quick perusal of the responses, students overall have enjoyed engaging with the project. The lesser the structure, the more they struggled, though, since they were looking for clear guidelines on what we expected. So next time, we will have examples for them.
Abbey: As Sayali shared, so far our feedback has shown an interest in more structure for the projects. In the descriptions for each individual “Quest,” students were provided with instructions, and for their final portfolio, they were also given resources on licensing, accessibility, and the support available on campus for developing writing projects and/or podcasts. While some students were able to run with the general prompt for their assignment and make it their own, others had difficulty deciding what to focus on and how to structure their work.
This assignment centers social justice in several ways, including the option for students to include their own lived experiences. Have you found that shared, first-person experience is valuable/impactful to learning? How so?
Sayali: Absolutely! The exercise of self-reflection is a great way to think about how the concepts one is learning connect to one’s lived experiences. We added several reflection components to the project with the hope that students will engage with them deeply. We did this also to tap into their intrinsic motivation to learn course concepts because when one can see how course concepts relate to their daily lives, they become inherently more interested and engaged.
Abbey: We didn’t require that students talk about their personal experiences, but many elected to share reflections as part of their final portfolio. These reflections varied in their depth and connection to personal experiences, from thinking about how working on assignments like these could impact their learning, to reflecting on their prior experiences with the topic of skin color and how their preconceptions reflected their upbringing. When students chose to share these sorts of reflections, they also shared a sense of thankfulness and surprise at what they learned, which I think implies a sense of deeper learning.
Do you think OEP is an effective teaching approach in STEM, where problem-solving has long been the emphasis? Why?
Sayali: I don’t see problem-solving and OEP as mutually exclusive since we can draw from multiple ways of knowing and learning to develop an effective teaching approach.
Abbey: Oh, absolutely! STEM–and science as a whole–is all about exploration and discovery, testing hypotheses and confronting preconceived notions. OEP is an extension of the sort of problem-based learning that undergirds the field, and I think it fits well.
Please recall a moment in this OEP implementation that brought you joy/satisfaction.
Sayali: Students reaching out to bounce ideas off me while developing their portfolio was one such moment. Another one was seeing one student using their creativity to develop an awesome podcast-style episode with graphics and music so it felt like I was listening to an actual podcast episode!
Abbey: As students were preparing their final portfolios, they were asked to fill out a survey to select whether they would share their work and what license they would use, if they chose to share their project openly. During this process, one student reached out to me personally to ask about the options available to them, because they wanted to make sure that their project was “as open as possible,” and that it could reach a wide audience. As a librarian and an open education professional, this was a highlight for me!
Key takeaways from this experience that you’d like to share with your colleagues?
Sayali: This is our very first time implementing our OEP project in an online asynchronous course, so we have a lot to learn. We are currently going through the feedback that students have provided about their experiences engaging with the project and what improvements they would like to see in the future. One observation that I would like to share, though, is that in the future I would like to build in more support for the students as they work through the project, a challenge we will continue to face when engaging 150 students in OEP.
Abbey: Iteration is okay! Sayali and I went into this project knowing that it would be a learning experience the first time around, and that it would take time to get things how we wanted them to be. We learned a lot from the questions we received from students this year, and we’re looking forward to providing a better, more engaging experience for next year’s students based on the feedback we received.
You’re both almost finished with the Certificate in OEP. What’s up next in terms of your open education growth or aspirations?
Sayali: As the OEP Certificate program reaches its conclusion, I am excited about reflecting and revising the BioQuest project for future semesters. In the future, I hope to apply for grants to support this work Abbey and I have started.
Abbey: Now that I’ve had a chance to work through this process with Sayali and with the tools that the Certificate program has given me, I’d like to start up a faculty learning community on our campus for those interested in exploring OEP for their courses. We have a great relationship with our Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, and I think it would be great to partner with them on building out more support for faculty like Sayali, who want to provide experiences like this for their students.
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Sayali and Abbey, it was a pleasure talking with you about your OEP endeavor. Thank you for the inspiration and learning opportunity you’ve shared with us and the open education community.
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