3.3 OER-enabled pedagogy prompt planning

Figure 8. Picture of Adrian-OER 5Rs

Adrian-OER 5Rs by Katuska Campana (2020) has been licensed under a Creative Commons — Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

The German psychologist and philosopher Johann Friedrich Herbart  (1776 – 1841) is credited with founding pedagogy as an academic discipline. Herbart designed an eight-lesson plan that helps teachers understand, recognize, correct, and reflect students’ misconceptions.  According to Herbart, “ there are eight-lesson plan phases that are designed to provide many opportunities for teachers to …[create] future lessons. These phases are Introduction, Foundation, Brain Activation, Body of New Information, Clarification, Practice and Review, Independent Practice, and Closure.” (“Lesson Plan,” 2020)

Planning an OER activity is not much different from planning a lesson with a few different key components, keeping in mind that students will share and license their work at the end. OER Activity Prompt Planning is vital because instructors need to create meaningful, mindful, and well-organized activities that can engage ALL students in learning.  Having a carefully constructed activity plan for the entire activity time will give instructors confidence about time management and maximize students’ learning experience. An plan also provides instructors with a general outline of how to accomplish an instructor’s learning objectives and teaching goals (Aim), which are arguably the two most crucial components in productive active learning.

Planning your OER Activity prompt is a crucial process. Successful active learning activities planning addresses and integrates the following key components:

1. Understanding how students learn (see this site for more information)

Students learn in different ways, and instructors should create OER activities that accommodate students’ different learning styles.

Visual learners:  They learn more through videos, pictures, diagrams, charts, number lines, maps, index cards, colors, written notes, etc. Visual students associate concepts with a representation in picture form.

Auditory learners: They learn best with spoken words, listening to lectures, educational songs, reading information aloud, peer teaching, auditory mnemonics, etc.

Kinesthetic learners: They learn, understand and remember best by moving, touching or manipulating objects.        

Linguistic learners: They learn best by verbal and writing articulation. Linguistic learners need specific writing guidances and or steps to learn. They are excellent writers and orators.

Logical and or Mathematical learners: They learn best by abstracting numerical concepts, methodological logic, sequence activities and technology.

Interpersonal learners:They learn best in collaborative groups because they are auditory and linguistic learners and communication is vital in their learning process.

Intrapersonal learners: They learn best by working in a quiet secluded environment. They learn more by working alone instead of in groups.

Note: For more information read these summaries.

2. Different types of learning activities

Didactic learning is when students watch videos, read and listen to lectures, and then instructors ask students for a short response paragraph.

3. Active learning is when students independently analyze, understand, remember, evaluate, solve and create real-life problems through games and exercises.
4. Collaborative learning is when all students actively work together to complete a task

Note: A combination of at least two of the three in group settings activities is vital.  For more information on how to do so, click on this resource.

5. Different types of active learning techniques:

6. Header or Title

It is important to create a header in your OER activity prompt. Students need to know what kind of activity they are doing and they are going to be working in groups. The more details and guidance, the better students of different learning types will cope.

7. Time

Time  is usually included in the header. It is important for students and  instructors to know the duration of the activity. For time management, instructors must establish the amount of time an OER activity will take.

8. Prior knowledge

Prior knowledge is the knowledge or information a student already has or learns or experiences before they meet new lessons. Prior knowledge is vital because it will allow students to connect and relate what they already know with new concepts.  By activating students’ prior knowledge, learning engagement and understanding of the new material, information or a lesson can be improved exponentially. Prior experience or knowledge will help students recall concepts and/or information from previous lectures, homework, projects, and activities to make connections with new information.

The Brazilian educational theorist Paulo Freire referred to "the banking concept" (Freire, 1970, p. 71) in pedagogy as teaching students like empty vessels ready to be filled with instructors’ knowledge and not allowing them critical thinking. In the banking system, students learn only by memorization and/or repetition. Prior knowledge will, on the contrary, enable students to get involved in their learning process.  Therefore, it is imperative that instructors know whether students have the proper prior knowledge before imparting knowledge or asking students to create an OER activity. For more information please click here.

9. Learning Objectives

A critical key component of writing learning objective statements well is choosing the right words. When writing your objectives, use strong verbs and positive statements. Here are some strong verbs to include in your OER activity objectives: collect, construct, classify, develop, devise, measure, produce, revise, select, synthesize. For more objective learning verbs, visit this resource. 

Aim (topic)

Aims are usually general and/or broad statements created to help students know what instructors hope for them to achieve at the end of the project, lesson, or OER activity. Aims also help instructors integrate and connect content and assessment around learning objectives. It is vital to know the difference between objectives and aims: aims are general statements while objectives address HOW students are going to achieve the aim. For more information, see this resource.

Examples of aims and objectives for OER activity

Aim: To learn to create practice tests

Objectives:

1. Students will be revising class materials- correct homework and practice Test 1 form A, B and C for the last semester.
2. Students will be collecting OER materials to create problems for Test 1.
3. Students will be synthesizing both classroom material and OER material to create Test 1 Form D.
4. Students will be sharing their work among themselves
5. Student will be licensing their work to the OER community with a Creative Commons license

10.  Working on activity

Ideally, students should be setting groups where they will be:

1. Collaborating
2. Understanding and Remembering
3. Analyzing and Evaluating
4. Creating and Applying
5. Sharing and Licensing their activities

11.  Assessment is optional for instructors; it depends on instructors’ objectives. However, it is strongly recommended in an active learning classroom environment for the instructor to ask students to do at least one of the following:

1. write a short response and/or reflection paragraph
2. take a one- or two-question quiz at the end of the assignment

By Katuska Campana