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.

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.

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.

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.

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.