Five Dimensions of Open and Culturally Responsive Teaching: An Evidence-based Framework to Create Equitable Instruction
Thursday November 17, 2022 - 10:45 AM to 11:30 AM
Concurrent Session 9

Brief Abstract

Using OER with open pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching practices frees instructors to design courses that elevate cultural perspectives and engage and empower students from diverse backgrounds. A new evidence-based framework identifies five dimensions of  open and culturally responsive teaching to help faculty deliver equitable, learner-centered instruction.

Extended Abstract

At the heart of creating a diverse, inclusive and equitable campus is providing learning experiences that make all students feel welcome, where course content includes diverse perspectives tailored to students’ backgrounds, needs, and interests, and where there is a culture of care and mutual respect.  Every element of the course experience—course design, instructional content, teaching practices, assessment, faculty and student interactions—can and should be designed through an equity lens with students at the center. However, many traditional teaching practices minimize student voice, and traditional materials and assignments, such as textbooks and standardized tests, often restrict instructors to a set curriculum that emphasizes memorization rather than knowledge creation and real-world problem-solving. One way faculty circumvent the traditional limitations on materials and instruction is through the use of open educational resources (OER).

The use of Open Education Resources (OER)—freely available, high-quality learning materials that can be downloaded, edited, and shared—has been steadily growing in popularity at colleges and universities nationwide, primarily to help lower the costs for college. Many educators and policymakers, however, believe OER has great promise to not only reduce the cost of instructional materials, but also make teaching more dynamic and personalized, and potentially increase student course and degree completion. Using OER materials can free instructors to design course assignments and materials that elevate cultural perspectives and educational experiences that engage and empower students from diverse backgrounds. Additionally, instructors can embrace a broader set of open educational practices facilitated by OER use, inviting students to become co-creators in instruction and generators of new knowledge, empowering them to curate curriculum materials, write exam questions, or generate content to add to an OER textbook. These practices can result in courses that are more reflective of diverse students’ personal experiences and ways of knowing and learning.

However, to date, there is little empirical research that examines whether the use of OER leads to instructional transformation, what OER teaching practice looks like in the classroom, and how the use of these practices affects students. There is also a dearth of research on how OER can support educational equity, particularly in schools and colleges that serve historically marginalized populations.

To better understand the instructional potential of OER, we conducted a study of experienced OER faculty at 8 community colleges who were using the affordances of open materials, OER-enabled pedagogy, and culturally responsive teaching practices to transform their teaching. Through interviews with faculty and students, classroom observations, and surveys, we found that students identified several benefits of courses that used open and culturally responsive teaching practices. Students reported feeling:

• a greater sense of agency and ownership over their learning, which some said contributed to greater motivation or success in these courses. A few students felt they had limited agency over course design and content.
• an increased sense of belonging and connection to the course material. A few students reported that what they learned in their OER courses felt relevant and applicable to the real world, making them feel more connected to and represented in the course.
• an increase level of comfort and engagement in the course due to a more collaborative, safer, and open classroom culture. Students described how instructors created this open culture by fostering positive relationships between and with students. However, not all students felt there were regular interactions between students or with instructors, most often because of asynchronous learning due to COVID-19.

In addition, we found that when OER instructors engaged in these practices they helped:

• Increase student voice and choice in assignments. Instructors gave students some opportunities to assert voice and choice, typically in selecting topics for assignments or in offering suggestions for course materials. Numerous instructors reported giving students choice in selecting how they would show their learning.
• Increase inclusivity through relevant content. The flexibility of OER enabled instructors to incorporate topics that are relevant to students’ lives and tailor the course features to meet students’ needs and backgrounds. Additionally, OER allowed instructors to bring in a more diverse set of perspectives by including authors from backgrounds not represented in traditional textbooks.
• Create opportunities for knowledge creation and collaboration. Several instructors provided opportunities for students to share their ideas with each other, offered opportunities for students to generate or apply new knowledge, and/or asked students to help select course materials or to create OER material. Some instructors also created assignments in which students applied course concepts to real-world scenarios or social/community problems. However, fewer instructors described themselves as learning alongside students as part of these collaborations.
• Elevate students’ critical consciousness. Instructors sometimes attempted to develop students’ critical consciousness and engage in social justice issues. In some courses, instructors addressed social justice issues through readings, discussions, or examples. More often, instructors used course assignments to address social justice issues and/or aimed to develop or grow students’ critical consciousness around current events and issues.

Based on the findings of this research, we developed a framework that identifies five interconnected dimensions of open and culturally responsive teaching practices:

1. Student Ownership and Agency
2. Inclusive Content
3. Collaborative Knowledge Generation
4. Critical Consciousness
5. Classroom Culture

Using this framework has the potential to help accelerate the development of transformative teaching practice, guiding faculty and course designers in a review of instructional practices and course design, instructional materials, assessments and assignments, and interactions with students, providing faculty members and instructional designers with a evidence-based structure to evaluate and implement effective, engaging, and equitable instruction.

During this session, attendees will learn more about the research from which the framework was developed, be introduced to examples of these dimensions in practice in the field, and learn about successful strategies for operationalizing the framework dimensions in a college classroom. To familiarize attendees with the details of the framework and help them apply the dimensions to their own professional practice, we will provide opportunities for them to work in small groups and, using a shared doc, collectively brainstorm ideas for operationalizing the five framework dimensions in their own discipline, share out their ideas with the group, and discuss any challenges and/or opportunities they identified in applying the framework to their own practice.