Thursday, November 4, 2010

Open Education Resources: beyond the rhetoric

Last week I gave an online presentation with my colleague, Bronwyn Hegarty, about our experiences of running open, online courses for the Open Access Week Conference.

Thinking back on my experiences as a student and teacher in open courses, the main thing that dawns on me is that my teaching style has changed - that I am becoming more of a facilitator than a teacher. It's taken me a couple of years to work this one out. And I still haven't got my head around where assessment fits in with this model of facilitation in education. But teaching in an open environment has given me more confidence to be who I am, and not struggle to be the 'expert' - as a facilitator you leave the students to create their own understanding instead of 'telling' them what they should understand and having them rely totally on your interpretation.

Here is the Elluminate recording of our presentation - here is the mp3 recording.

2 comments:

Mike Bogle said...

You continue to be an inspiration for me in this area. Thanks for your tireless efforts. I wish more academics thought like you do :D

Sarah Stewart said...

Hello Mike, thanks a lot for your comment but have to say that I couldn't do it without the institution backing me, and encouragement from people like Bron, Leigh Blackall and my boss Terry Marler. Not at all sure how I'd go with an employer who does not support OER.