Professional Learning

Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practice (OEP) open the door to increased equity and social justice in education. ISKME offers professional learning around the foundations of OER/OEP, then builds on those foundations with training covering accessibility and culturally responsive teaching.

Our Approach to Open Educational Practice

When educators adopt OER, we see a shift in their teaching and learning practices to help advance a culture of sharing and active learning. Our OEP Professional Learning offerings support educators in developing their skills around collaboration, curation, design, leadership, and continuous improvement of OER.

Join our Professional Learning Communities to participate in curation, evaluation, and creation of Professional Learning OER focused on open educational practice, accessibility, and culturally responsive teaching.

Interested in working with ISKME to meet your professional learning goals? Contact us!

Open Educational Practice Collaborators

ISKME and OER Commons partner closely with educational organizations at many different levels to support Open Educational Practices (OEP).

See some of our partners discussing how OEP impacts both educators and students.

 

Open Educational Practices Round Table Discussion

Open Educational Practices (OEP) are essential to supporting adult educators as they create meaningful engagement for their students. Listen to James Glapa-Grossklag, Chalana Brown and Katie Blunt discuss how they are using OEP in their local contexts. The discussion is also connected to the big concepts of Project-Based Learning. 

Radically Reimagining How Faculty Collaborate

Radically Reimagining How Faculty Collaborate To Quickly Shift Anthropology Courses Online

Hear from Zoe Wool, Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto about the Anthropology Mini-Lecture Project that she co-created during the beginning days of lockdown in 2020.

Coordinating Digital Learning at a State level

Nebraska's OER Hub engaged a  Blended Learning Cohort who developed 250 Remote Learning Plans for K-12 in under three months' time. Andrew Easton, Coordinator of Digital Learning, ESU Coordinating Council at the Nebraska Department of Education explains how collaboration was key to this momentous effort.

Open Educational Practice Collections

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Our Approach to Creating & Evaluating Resources for Accessibility

OER has been licensed so that it is free to access by anyone anywhere. With a license that allows for remixing, resources may be further adapted to meet the needs of all learners. ISKME has prioritized the study and promotion of accessible OER through our partnership with CAST and our work to meet WCAG guidelines across our digital libraries. 

Our Accessibility-focused Professional Learning Academies pair the accessibility tools of the OER Commons platform with the content knowledge of experts to provide educators with an introduction to specific tools, strategies, and resources that prioritize the adaptation and creation of resources to better meet the needs of all learners, no matter the accommodation needed.

 

OER Accessibility Toolkit

The focus of many open education projects is to provide access to education. But what does access mean? If the materials are not accessible for each and every student, do they fulfill the mandate to deliver fully open education? The open education movement has helped people in different parts of the world access content that they would otherwise not be able to view or interact with. Open education resources reduce costs for students and allow for greater flexibility for instructors. Accessibility can help push the movement even further forward.

The goal of the OER Accessibility Toolkit is to provide the needed resources needed to each content creator, instructor, instructional designer, educational technologist, librarian, administrator, and teaching assistant to create a truly open and accessible educational resource — one that is accessible for all students.

As you work through the content of the OER Accessibility Toolkit, you will find that the suggestions provided are intended for the non-technical user. If you are looking for more technical descriptions of how to make your work accessible, we suggest you review the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).

STEM OER Accessibility Framework and Guide

This guidebook was created by ISKME, in partnership with the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College. The document provides a practical reference for curators and authors of STEM OER, and contains 23 accessibility criteria, or elements, to reference as they curate, design and adapt materials to be accessible for STEM learners.

The primary audience of this resource is STEM postsecondary faculty, instructional designers, and others responsible for course design and pedagogy who seek to:

  • Expand their knowledge about accessibility and ways to integrate it into their STEM curriculum and instruction

  • Design openly licensed STEM courses and course materials that support both access and use by learners

  • Curate existing STEM content that expands upon traditional textbooks and courseware to address variability in learning

  • Identify and add meaningful keywords, or tags, to the STEM OER they create, so that their OER can be more easily discovered across platforms

Professional learning teams on campus are also encouraged to use this framework as part of training to facilitate integration of accessibility concepts into STEM course design and pedagogy.

The framework and guide development was supported by a mini-grant program facilitated by Bates College and the SCORE-UBE Network (Sustainability Challenges for Open Resources to promote an Equitable Undergraduate Biology Education), with funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The framework and guide were developed by ISKME and SERC with input from 21 STEM faculty members from across the United States, and in collaboration with the project’s Working Group of accessibility experts: Andrew Hasley and Hayley Orndorf, both with BioQUEST’s UDL Initiative and the Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education and Synthesis (QUBES) Project; Hannah Davidson, Plymouth State University; and Cynthia Curry, National Center on Accessible Educational Materials (AEM)/CAST.

Accessibility & Universal Design for Learning Collections

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Our Approach to Culturally Responsive Teaching

Culturally Relevant Teaching was defined by Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings as an approach that "requires a focus on students' learning, an attempt to develop their cultural competence, and to increase their sociopolitical or critical consciousness" (Ladson-Billings). This approach has been expanded to include the necessity of being culturally and lingusitically responsive and sustaining by the work of Dr. Geneva Gay, Dr. Django Paris, Dr. Zaretta Hammond and Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, among many others.

OER are especially important to this approach because these resources are designed to be openly shared and adapted, which is key to being relevant, responsive and sustaining to the needs of students. As educators engage in a journey of being culturally responsive and sustaining, OER Commons has curated some resources to support curation, collaboration, and creation.

To support deep collaboration, OER Commons offers Culturally Responsive Teaching Professional Learning series that support educators as they do the deep work of identifying and redressing harmful bias and adapting resources to include a more diverse set of viewpoints in education. 

See the materials below to see excerpts from some of our Professional Learning Series.

 

The Why: Culturally Responsive Education in Action

This video is an example of Culturally Responsive Education and comes from New America. We share this video first as an example for why Culturally Relevant Teaching is an important approach for all educators and is part of democratizing access to high quality resources and professional learning. The competencies from New America are a valuable tool to allow educators multiple access points for their professional learning journey. As you watch this video, imagine how empowered educators can be when they have access to high quality resources that can be adapted and shared to truly be relevant, responsive and sustaining to students' identities. That is the role of OER Commons and the professional learning ISKME can provide as we help educators take the next steps in curating, interrogating and adapting their educational resources.

"Teachers at Capital City Lighthouse Charter School in North Little Rock, Arkansas, were in for a unique professional development opportunity. Unlike a typical training session, on this late summer day teachers would learn directly from students. Teachers heard first hand student reflections about their school experiences and how well their classes reflected their identities and interests. Culturally responsive education is an essential element of empowering teachers and students to promote equity in the classroom and social justice in the community."

See also: Culturally Responsive Teaching: A Reflection Guide

 

Bias and Pedagogy

In this video, one of our Culturally Relevant Teaching facilitators, Josh Parker, gives an introduction to bias and how it appears in educational settings and in curriculum materials. This video is part of an asynchronous learning series, but it is also part of the broader work that ISKME and OER Commons leads in order to support educators in identifying and redressing harmful bias. You can view the slideshow here and the entire series is forthcoming.

Culturally Relevant Teaching Learning Series Video One

"Teaching, Learning and Bias” ~ This video from educator Josh Parker is a 6 minute video exploring how bias relates to teaching and pedagogy. 

Culturally Relevant Teaching Learning Series Video Two

"Bias, Preference and Prejudice"  ~ This video from educator Dr. Jemelleh Coes is a 5 minute video explaining the definitions and impact of human bias on educator viewpoint. 

Culturally Relevant Teaching Learning Series Video Three

"Bias and Culture"  ~ This video from educator Josh Parker is an 8 minute video connecting bias to culture and the culture of our students.


 

Culturally Relevant Teaching Learning Series Video Four

"Interpersonal and System Bias" ~ This video from Dr. Jemelleh Coes is a 6 minute video looking at how personal bias is influenced by systemic bias, including a classroom example.

Culturally Relevant Teaching Learning Series Video Five

"Identifying and Redressing Bias"  ~ This video from educator Josh Parker is a 9 minute video explaining how educators’ cultures impact possible responses.

Culturally Relevant Teaching Learning Series Video Six

"The Identifying Bias Tool" ~ This video from educator Christina Spears is a 5 minute video introducing a tool that can help educators identify bias in curriculum resources.

Culturally Relevant Teaching Learning Series Video Seven

"Model of the Identifying Bias Tool" ~ This video from educator Christina Spears is a 5 min video modeling how to use the Identifying Bias Tool with a resource on OER Commons.

Culturally Relevant Teaching Learning Series Video Eight

"Culturally Relevant Teaching and Pedagogy" ~ This video from educatot Josh Parker is a 8 minute video discussing how culturally relevant teaching goes beyond bias to build positive cultural identities.

Culturally Relevant Teaching Learning Series Video Nine

"Becoming Sustaining of Culture" ~ This video from educator Josh Parker is an 8 minute video describing how to ensure what we do doesn’t erase student identities.

A Tool for Identifying Bias

In our work to support educators in identifying and redressing bias, our team of facilitators has created a Tool for Identifying Bias in Sources to help educators think about different identity categories and how bias may show up or be hidden in educational resources. Our professional learning series supports educators in learning about bias and using this tool to evaluate resources. Below are some of the steps that our educators use when engaging with the tool.  

  1. Create a community of practice to engage in reflective dialogue with this process, if possible. If working alone, be sure to engage in reflective writing. 

  2. Select a curricular resource (e.g., text, task, instructional materials, assessment) to critically examine.

  3. Briefly review the twelve (12) identity markers listed below.

Culturally Responsive Teaching Collections

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Frameworks & Guides Related to Culturally Responsive Teaching

New America’s Culturally Responsive Teaching: A Reflection Guide

A core component of ISKME's professional learning program around culturally responsive teaching is New America's Culturally Responsive Teaching: A Reflection Guide. This guide established eight competencies for culturally responsive teaching:

  1. Reflect on One's Cultural Lens

  2. Recognize and Redress Bias in the System

  3. Draw on Students' Culture to Shape Curriculum and Instruction

  4. Bring Real-World Issues into the Classroom

  5. Model High Expectations for All Students

  6. Promote Respect for Student Differences

  7. Collaborate with Families and the Local Community

  8. Communicate in Linguistically and Culturally Responsive Ways

See: Culturally Responsive Teaching: A Reflection Guide

Screening for Biased Content in Instructional Materials

The Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction is releasing this model tool for screening for biased content to Washington districts in the hope that it will provide suggestions and examples for review teams during the instructional materials selection and adoption process.

See the Open Author resource Screening for Biased Content in Instructional Materials

Professional Learning Communities