Should we head for the open spaces? On the pros and cons of openness

When it comes to teaching, the question of openness versus “closedness” may seem like a moot point. Being a teacher per definition involves a certain degree of openness as one is sharing one’s identity, personality, knowledge and experience with other people. The question is thus not “if”, but rather “how” and “how much”? With regard to “how much”, Ehlers (2011) specified three levels of openness – low, medium, and high. 

• Low levels was present if “objectives as well as methods of learning and/or teaching are rooted in “closed” one way, transmissive and reproductive approaches to teaching and learning. In these contexts, the underlying belief is that teachers know what learners have to learn and mainly focus on knowledge-transfer.”
• In contrast, medium levels where present if “objectives are still predetermined and given, but methods of teaching and learning are represented as open pedagogical models. They encourage dialogue oriented forms of learning or problem based learning (PBL) focusing on dealing with developing ‘Know how’.” 
•  Finally, high level of openness where present if “objectives of learning as well as methods (e.g. learning pathways) are highly determined and governed by learners. Questions or problems around which learning is ensuing are determined by learners …, and teachers facilitate through open and experience-oriented methods which accommodate different learning pathways, either through scaffolding and tutorial interactions … or contingency tutoring ...” (p. 3).

The classical model of teaching would according to this definition be at the lowest level openness, but in my view it would nonetheless be wrong to describe it as a completely closed teaching model. There are in other words different levels of openness, but any form of teaching irrespective of teaching methods involves some for degree of openness.

With regard to the “how”, there are also different forms of openness. A frequent distinction appears to be between open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) (see e.g. Ehlers 2011). OER here primarily refers to simply to the accessibility of digital resources, whereas OEP instead focuses on the use of these resources. More precisely, “OEP are defined as practices which support the (re)use and production of OER through institutional policies, promote innovative pedagogical models, and respect and empower learners as co-producers on their lifelong learning path.” (p. 3).

Ehlers (2011) sketches a matrix of openness, combining the three levels of openness outlined above with three forms of OER usage. At one end of the matrix we would thus have knowledge transmission using closed methods and objectives and low OER usage, at the other collaborative sharing with open methods and objectives and high OER usage, re-usage and creation.

However, studies of the implementation of OEP do seem to suggest that most openness still takes the form of OER, the spread of open learning architectures, the use of quality improvement through external validation and the change of educational cultures integral to OEP has been slow (OPAL 2011). Yet even without the implementation of OEP, OER can be a useful step forward. UNESCO (2015) thus identifies three different channels through which OER may transform education. These are 1) the increased availability of high quality, relevant learning materials can contribute to more productive students and educators, 2) the principle of allowing adaptation of materials provides one mechanism amongst many for constructing roles for students as active participants in educational processes, and 3) the potential to build capacity by providing institutions and educators access, at low or no cost, to the means of production to develop their competence in producing educational materials and carrying out the necessary instructional design (p. 13).

The most prominent form of OER is the massive open online courses (MOOC). It seems unclear whether this actually is the most frequent form of OER, but it is without doubt the one garnering the most attention. MOOCs have been defined as “massive, with theoretically no limit to enrollment; open, allowing anyone to participate, usually at no cost; online, with learning activities typically taking place over the web; and a course, structured around a set of  learning goals in a defined area of study”(Toven-Lindsey et al. 2014, p. 1). MOOCs come in two versions, xMOOCs which are courses similar to traditional courses and cMOOCs which have “course materials and contend derived from students during the course” (Alraimi et al. 2014).

When they arrived, MOOCs, and OER more generally, were hailed as a major breakthrough in higher education. They would provide easily accessible education for large groups of students, many of them without traditional forms of access and from disadvantaged backgrounds (Christensen et al., 2013). In addition, they would enable educators to embark upon new pedagogical trajectories, triggering the development of novel teaching methods (Margaryan et al. 2015). 

While it may still be too early to pass definite judgment, MOOCs have come up short on many of these promises. The evidence is somewhat limited, yet the student body appears to be made up of largely the traditional group of students (Christensen et al. 2013), the completion rates are low even among these students (Hone and El Said 2016), something that potentially may be related to the poor quality of instruction (Hew and Cheung 2014, Margaryan et al. 2015, Toven-Lindsey et al. 2015).

Nonetheless, this should probably be seen as momentary challenges rather than final verdicts. OER is a relatively new phenomenon and MOOCs even more so. In fact, the first MOOC is said to have been launched in 2008, with the MOOC “movement” taking hold 2012 (Toven-Lindsey et al. 2015). With such a fledgling movement, mistakes are bound to be made and new approaches developed (e.g. Fidalgo-Blanco et al. 2015). Indeed, with a definition of OEP emphasizing the collaborative and learner governed aspect of education, the future of OER, MOOC, and OEP seems inherently impossible to predict.

References

Alraimi, K., Zo, H., Ciganek, A. (2015). Understanding the MOOCs continuance: The role of openness and reputation. Computers & Education, 80: 28-38.

Christensen, G., Steinmetz, A., Alcorn, B., Bennett, A., Woods, D., Emanuel, E.J. (2013). The MOOC Phenomenon: Who Takes Massive Open Online Courses and Why? (November 6, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2350964

Ehlers, U-D. (2011). From open educational resources to open educational practices. eLearning Papers, no. 23.

Fidalgo-Blanco, A., Sein-Echaluce, M.L., García-Peñalvo, F.G. (2015). Methodological Approach and Technological Framework to Break the Current Limitations of MOOC Model. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 21: 712-734.

Hew, K.F., Cheung, W.S. (2014). Students’ and instructors’ use of massive open online courses (MOOCs): Motivations and challenges. Educational Research Review 12: 45–58.

Hone, K.S, El Said, G.R (2016). Exploring the factors affecting MOOC retention: A survey study. Computers & Education 98: 157-168.

Margaryan, A., Bianco, M., Littlejohn, A. (2015). Instructional quality of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Computers & Education 80: 77-83

OPAL (2011). Beyond OER. Shifting Focus to Open Educational Practices. OPAL Report 2011. Open Educational Quality Initiative.

Toven-Lindsey, B., Rhoads, R. A., Berdan Lozano, J. (2015). Virtually unlimited classrooms: Pedagogical practices in massive open online courses. Internet and Higher Education 24: 1–12.

UNESCO (2015). A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER). UNESCO, Paris, France.