Open Education 2017

As the state of Idaho moves toward the adoption of open education resources, one of the biggest challenges is getting the word out about OER to K-12 educators throughout the state. Idaho State Department of Education teamed up with University of Idaho's Doceo Center for Innovation + Learning to create a unique experience for educators with the following goals concerning OER: 1) increase understanding 2) promote use 3) demonstrate how to access 4) share technologies that support use 5) assist with creating collections for use. The outcome was a one-day professional development opportunity offered at three different locations in the state (Moscow, Boise, and Pocatello) to reach out to the majority of Idaho K-12 educators. The day included 12 sessions to create a more individualized experience including a general session to support understanding of OER, sessions on specific OER tools, sessions to support specific subject areas, sessions to introduce technologies that support the use of OER, etc. Teachers could earn one professional development credit with an additional assignment related to implementing OER. This session will share an overview of this pd opportunity and feedback from educators who attended the event. This feedback is being used to guide future OER professional development opportunities including the creation of an online OER professional development course.

Abstract: Emerging research shows the impact of quality instructional materials on student achievement to be as large as quality instruction, and almost 40 times more cost-effective than class size reduction. As Open Education Resources seek to bolster their credibility in the materials space, it is imperative that OERs meet expectations when it comes to alignment with CCSS, usability, and other quality criteria. EdReports.org is an independent nonprofit that publishes free reviews of instructional materials, using an educator-designed tool that measures these criteria. The reports help districts and educators make informed purchasing and instructional decisions that support improved student outcomes. EdReports.org has reviewed or is in the process of reviewing 6 OER series finding a mix of quality with some grade-level materials meeting expectations and others only partially meeting expectations. At this session, we'll discuss the landscape of education materials with our panel and walk through how collaboration can lead to excellent materials for all students.

In October of 2015, state and district leaders from around the country gathered at the White House to announce their intention to "Go Open." The districts in attendance pledged to replace at least one set of course materials with open educational resources, while state leaders committed to supporting district work and work to establish infrastructure for sharing OER.

Just two years later, this work has grown into a diverse movement of state and district education leaders across the country who are exploring OER as a potential solution to shortcomings in the marketplace for PreK-12 curricular materials. These leaders are identifying teachers who are already using OER in the classroom, integrating OER into existing processes for curriculum selection, and leveraging OER to fill existing gaps in resources.

Lindsey Tepe, senior policy analyst at New America, will provide an overview of state and district work, covered in a forthcoming policy paper to be released in summer 2017. Kristina Peters, K-12 Open Education Fellow with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology, will highlight implementation of PreK-12 OER at the district level. Erika Aparaka, OER Fellow with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), will provide insight into future directions for state work and the potential for state collaboration around OER.

The Middletown Learning Path is an innovative new OER tool for educators and students which solves for inefficiencies in the curriculum marketplace and fosters personalized learning. The OER player provides access to high-quality, standards aligned, vetted digital resources and assessments for educators and students. The player feeds data to educators, allowing them to create personalized playlists for students, enabling increased student agency and choice.

We are proposing an interactive discussion session in which we will provide a short presentation on OER and the Middletown Learning Path tool. The presenters will each have a few minutes to discuss their involvement in the development and use of the tool. We will conduct a poll to better understand the audience and use Google slides to facilitate a discussion around the implementation, vetting and development of OER to fill curriculum gaps and personalize learning for students.

The Middletown Learning Path is being developed in a partnership between the Enlarged School District of Middletown, New York and Education Elements. The Learning Accelerator is spotlighting examples of how OER can be used in blended and personalized classrooms to increase student agency and engagement. The panel members will include Ken Eastwood, Superintendent of Middletown School District, Ray Rozycki, Vice President of Education at Education Elements and Jennifer Wolfe, Partner at The Learning Accelerator.

The panel presentation on the Multiply K-12 OER media project explore what OER means for K-12 education. Through a series of interviews with OER scholars and practicing K-12 teachers, the podcasts and videos cover the strengths and challenges of the awareness, use and advocacy of OER for K-12 within Canada and beyond. The 17 podcasts and 3 videos are housed on the Blended and Online Learning and Teaching (BOLT) blog that shares out pedagogical views, research in practice, and professional insights from in-service teachers who work in blended and online environments.The podcasts use interviewee commentary on the following OER topics: a history of OER; the current landscape; benefits to K-12 learning; acceptance; learning with OER; teaching with OER; openness and the open mindset in learning; 8 attributes of Open Pedagogy; the Open Pedagogy model; creating OER policy in Canada; and Canadian copyright and user rights, including K-12 scenarios. The 3 videos cover the following areas: Attributes of Open Community; Attributes of Open Practice; and Albertan Perspectives on OER in K-12 Learning.Due to participatory technologies, K-12 educators are already engaging with OER without being fully aware that they are involved to some degree in OER and a philosophy of openness. Through the Multiply K-12 OER media, all levels of K-12 educators can examine their current understanding and see the future of OER wherever they teach. The sharing out of the media and having teachers elsewhere in the world access these media will be part of the multiplying effect of these podcasts and videos and highlights the changing nature of professional learning in the era of OER. This panel presentation will discuss the media project and the response by educators regarding this OER professional learning for in-service teachers. Funded by the Alberta Open Educational Resources (ABOER) Initiative, the project was made possible through an investment from the Alberta government.

Mountain Heights Academy is renewing its commitment to OER by involving all faculty members in a race to learn, create, and invite students to design OER with them. Teachers will be given an OER Passport at the beginning of the year with a list of tasks, resources, and courses to complete in whichever order they choose. Upon completion of each one, their OER Passport will be stamped and by the end of the school year each teacher will be even more of an OER expert than they were to begin with.

This presentation will focus on how to address barriers to scaling while not compromising quality. AlgebraByExample will be presented as an example.



There are two primary barriers that can prevent scaling: cost and complexity. Open education resources minimize costs to use materials, but if OERs require considerable up-front investment in professional learning, or significant adaptation to fit within a teacher's practice, cost and complexity once again become a barrier. But simplifying materials to minimize other required resources can compromise quality and outcomes.



The Strategic Education Research Partnership (SERP) has addressed this challenge by designing for learning by doing. Knowledge required for using materials is kept to a minimum. But as teachers engage with the materials, they become attuned to the benefits of targeted evidence-based practices. This results in similar yet more authentic learning than one might expect from PD, and without the associated costs.



We present, for example, AlgebraByExample. Created through a SERP partnership with a set of districts and Temple University, this set of 42 strategically-designed algebra assignments were developed with cost and complexity in mind. AlgebraByExample assignments are designed to focus on common misconceptions and errors that students make through the incorporation of worked examples and question promptsäóîproven strategies in cognitive science research to improve learning. There's no associated training, and the assignments fit naturally a teacher's daily routine (every math teacher uses assignments), so it's no surprise that there's little hesitance to adopt the materials. Beyond impacts directly on students, teachers have reported that using AlgebraByExample has led to incorporating worked examples and student explanation into their general practiceäóîall without being explicitly trained, coached, or even told to do so.

Open Up Resources is working with school districts in the US with the goal of widespread adoption of comprehensive OER. We've partnered with Illustrative Mathematics to develop a middle school math curriculum and are working with EL Education to distribute their K-5 English Language Arts materials. The approach we've taken differs from some earlier OER efforts. This session will describe the approach and results to date.



In developing the materials, we focused on creating comprehensive curriculum for entire grade bands rather than creating smaller lessons and units. And, we've added in supports for English language learners as well.



The draft materials underwent a rigorous review process, and were pilot tested in school districts. In addition, we focused on creating an engaging design for the materials.



The materials are available in both print and digital with an eye towards meeting districts where they are in terms of technology.



Finally, unlike many OER projects, this project included dedicated sales and marketing staff to help these materials compete directly with commercial products.

In 2012, Washington passed legislation directing the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to create a library of OER and promote awareness and adoption. Over the past five years, the K-12 OER Project has evolved in response to stakeholder needs, experiencing many successes and challenges to share with the OER community.

Successful strategies

- Evaluating OER quality led to an OER Library reviewed using the same procedure as traditional materials and generated a cadre of teacher OER advocates.

- Grants to groups implementing OER provided legitimacy to the work and encouraged districts to look closely at OER options as viable choices.

- On the policy front, work with the Washington State School Directors' Association created model Instructional Material Adoption policy that recognized OER as an option for core instructional material consideration. In addition, OSPI adopted an agency wide Copyright and Open Licensing Policy that acts as a model for school districts.

- Joining the #GoOpen initiative provided access to a large community of OER champions across the US willing to share critical expertise and resources

Challenges

- Many school boards struggle with the adoption of adaptable resources that could impact fidelity of implementation district wide.

- Addressing misconceptions about what OER is and is not remains an issue.

- Encouraging a culture of document sharing beyond the district LMS can be difficult -- OER shines light on copyright issues that have been ignored when resources are kept in-house

Washington has advocated district consideration of OER. This message has been amplified by a similar push from the U.S. Department of Education. Having a dedicated program at the state level is critical to provide ongoing guidance about the inclusion of OER as an important part of the instructional materials ecosystem. However, to scale the work partners and collaborators are needed at the district, state, and national level.

This presentation will focus on how to address barriers to scaling while not compromising quality. AlgebraByExample will be presented as an example.



There are two primary barriers that can prevent scaling: cost and complexity. Open education resources minimize costs to use materials, but if OERs require considerable up-front investment in professional learning, or significant adaptation to fit within a teacher's practice, cost and complexity once again become a barrier. But simplifying materials to minimize other required resources can compromise quality and outcomes.



The Strategic Education Research Partnership (SERP) has addressed this challenge by designing for learning by doing. Knowledge required for using materials is kept to a minimum. But as teachers engage with the materials, they become attuned to the benefits of targeted evidence-based practices. This results in similar yet more authentic learning than one might expect from PD, and without the associated costs.



We present, for example, AlgebraByExample. Created through a SERP partnership with a set of districts and Temple University, this set of 42 strategically-designed algebra assignments were developed with cost and complexity in mind. AlgebraByExample assignments are designed to focus on common misconceptions and errors that students make through the incorporation of worked examples and question promptsäóîproven strategies in cognitive science research to improve learning. There's no associated training, and the assignments fit naturally a teacher's daily routine (every math teacher uses assignments), so it's no surprise that there's little hesitance to adopt the materials. Beyond impacts directly on students, teachers have reported that using AlgebraByExample has led to incorporating worked examples and student explanation into their general practiceäóîall without being explicitly trained, coached, or even told to do so.

Open Up Resources is working with school districts in the US with the goal of widespread adoption of comprehensive OER. We've partnered with Illustrative Mathematics to develop a middle school math curriculum and are working with EL Education to distribute their K-5 English Language Arts materials. The approach we've taken differs from some earlier OER efforts. This session will describe the approach and results to date.



In developing the materials, we focused on creating comprehensive curriculum for entire grade bands rather than creating smaller lessons and units. And, we've added in supports for English language learners as well.



The draft materials underwent a rigorous review process, and were pilot tested in school districts. In addition, we focused on creating an engaging design for the materials.



The materials are available in both print and digital with an eye towards meeting districts where they are in terms of technology.



Finally, unlike many OER projects, this project included dedicated sales and marketing staff to help these materials compete directly with commercial products.

The Stone Arch Bridge Initiative for Education Resources, SABIER, takes the goals in the five phases of OER-implementation identified in the #GoOpen launch packet and combines them into a custom professional development and curriculum implementation program for grade level teams in a district or teams coming together from smaller districts. SABIER provides the professional development to support teachers in their open teaching practices and in the use of OER curriculum with web devices like iPads and Chromebooks.

SABIER also assists the districts in acquiring funds to pay for the initial transition.

This presentation demonstrates the collaboration of SABIER and the Concord Consortium to provide STEM courses delivered via an LMS that includes outcomes reporting.