Open Pedagogies

            Open pedagogy is used to refer to a teaching method that involves the student as creators of teaching content. It is vital to note that ‘open’ means the educational material that could be found in the public domain. It also stands for ‘Open Educational Resources’ (OER). Pedagogy normally means a method of teaching. It refers to the how to teach. Open pedagogy means that open educational resources are used as a method of teaching. Through open pedagogies it is possible to share teaching practices with the aim of improving education.

            Therefore, open pedagogy involves the students as part of the teaching process. The students are engaged in the co-creation of knowledge. This is possible especially when students create their own exercises to do. The educational material created could also be collected into the OER. This method of teaching creates a high-impact practice and experiential learning method that gives the student an opportunity to create renewable assignments.

            The open educational practice challenges the traditional role of direct teaching. In direct teaching, the student is just a recipient of information. The teacher does all the creation while the student is passive and only replies as and when requested by the teacher. However, open pedagogies requires the students to become owners of information.

            Our pod group chose the topic ‘Group Work and Collaborative Project’ for the Blueprint Project. The main idea is to teach the students on the Tuckman’s Model vs. Belbin’s Team Roles. The Blueprint Project uses some ideas of the open pedagogy. The students will engage in a group project with peer assessment. In the project, peers will assign roles to group members. This method involves the students as creators in the teaching process.