The Open Education movement is spurring York University to reimagine what education can look like. From textbooks, to pedagogy, more and more processes and resources are being shared and made available to colleagues and students—in an accessible, inclusive, free and collaborative way. It presents York with an opportunity to innovate our teaching and learning practices, while improving student access to course learning materials.
What does this mean for your courses, teaching practice and research? Come join us to learn, ask questions, and help form the direction of the university’s strategy, as we kick-off this work in Open Education.
This event, sponsored by the Open Education Steering Committee, will have two parts:
- Learning from leaders in Open Education (1-1:30 pm)
Five 5-minute presentations from your colleagues from their cutting-edge work, including projects funded by the Academic Innovation Fund (AIF) and eCampusOntario funds.- Sophie Bury, Director, Learning Commons and Reference Services
- Iris Epstein, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Health
- David Gelb, Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Design, School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design
- Paul Maharg, Distinguished Professor of Practice, Faculty, Osgoode Hall Law School
- Students of Dominique Scheffel-Dunand, Dept of French Studies, Faculty of LA&PS
- Open Space: Discussion Forum (1:30-4 pm)
Following the showcase, we will have a forum for discussion on open education topics, such as advances in pedagogy and the development of open educational resources. We will create the agenda together (with the help of a facilitator) and use breakout rooms to have rich discussions using the Open Space Technology system (see details below).
Event Goals and Outcomes
Open Space for Open Education aims to:
- discover what is already happening on campus,
- foster a space for those new to this area to learn and explore Open Education, and
- to identify initiatives that could be explored further in working groups or other offerings (professional learning tutorials, webinars, design sprints, etc).
Who should attend?
All full-time and part-time faculty, teaching assistants, educational developers, librarians, and other staff members involved in teaching and learning at York University.
Why attend?
Whether you’re just beginning to think about these issues and have questions or are actively working on a problem in this space and want to talk it out with colleagues, this event is made for You with its participant-driven agenda.
Event Details
- Thursday May 6th, 2021, from 1-4pm
- Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-space-for-open-education-tickets-147618684459
More about Open Space Technology
This kind of meeting is designed to have the energy of a coffee break. You get to move around and select which discussion you want to be part of in real time. With the agenda crated by the participants who are present, your topic will be part of the agenda if you’re brave enough to raise it. And those that show up are the right people to have the conversation, regardless of the size of your breakout room. With someone taking notes, all the great ideas are recorded, and can be read by others afterwards. This fosters cross-pollination of ideas. A similar kind of event is called an Unconference.
About the Open Education Steering Committee
Open education encourages the creation, access and use of open educational resources (OER) to increase the affordability of education for students worldwide. Through the use of open licenses, such as Creative Commons licences, this movement makes possible the ability to reuse, revise, remix and redistribute OER content, creating new pedagogical opportunities that are changing the relationship students have with learning.
As open education finds fertile ground in York University classrooms and in the York University Libraries (YUL), this Steering Committee brings together key campus stakeholders to lend their expertise to this evolving area. This Steering Committee will engage in broader campus-wide discussion and will identify strategies for advancing open education at York University.
The Open Education Steering Committee will engage in broad stakeholder discussions to advance the following goals:
- Provide a forum for discussion and consideration of changes to the system of scholarly recognition for advances in open education, inclusive of advances in pedagogy and the development of open educational resources.
- Create awareness of open educational practices among York faculty and develop programmatic approaches to provide the York University community with coordinated continuing education and support in this area.
- Coordinate and promote the creation, mobilization, and discovery of open educational resources produced by the broader York University community.
- Investigate avenues towards adopting open and/or affordable course materials to impact student experience at York University.
Learn more about the Open Education Steering Committee, including who its members are.
Open Education 101
If you’re interested in learning more about open education, OER, and open pedagogy, check out the following York University resources:
- OER Guide by York University Libraries
- Open Education Basics for AIF Recipients by S. Coysh & S. Quail