Teaching with OER & OER-enabled Pedagogy Fellowship
Using Open Educational Resources and Open Educational Resource-enabled Pedagogy to enhance Evidence-based Teaching
The Lumen Circles’ Teaching with OER & OER-enabled Pedagogy fellowship engages faculty in learning how to teach and engage students more effectively using powerful tools from the open educational movement. Fellows build skills and knowledge around evidence-based teaching practices to better understand and use OER materials and methods in their classes.
Benefits of Teaching with OER
- Provides more flexibility for teachers than commercial or copyrighted resources
- OER can be customized and personalized to any learning environment allowing for greater cultural inclusivity than commercial materials
- Keeps content relevant and high-quality, using OER allows educators to maintain quality and relevance through continuous updates
- Increase student access to learning materials and adapt materials to maximize student engagement and learning experiences
Expected Outcomes of Teaching with OER & OER-enabled Pedagogy
Use evidence-based teaching practices to enhance learning with OER courseware and materials
Identify how to choose and use OER courseware and materials
Explore how teaching with OER can enhance creating pedagogical partnerships with students
Learn how to customize OER content to ensure high-quality and relevant content for students
Brief Overview of the 9-Week Fellowship Curriculum
Supportive and Varied: Explore how creating a supportive learning environment impacts student persistence, and how using OER materials helps to keep students engaged. Write a plan to add Supportive and/or Varied evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs) to a learning activity you will teach over the next week. Report on how your plan went and give and receive feedback from Circle peers.
Teaching Reflection: Report on how your plan went using the platform template. Describe your teaching using the Lumen EBIP framework. Respond to your reviewers, and review your 2 assigned reflections.
Belonging: Explore using OER materials and pedagogy that support success for all students by helping them feel seen, respected, and partners in the learning process. Write a plan to add Belonging Evidence-based Instructional Practices (EBIPs) into a learning activity you will teach over the next week. Report on how your plan went and give and receive feedback from Circle peers.
Organized and Challenging: Learn how to use OER materials to create an organized and challenging learning environment. Write a plan to add Organized and/or Challenging evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs) to a learning activity you will teach over the next week. Report on how your plan and activities went and receive feedback from other faculty in your Circle. Give feedback to 2 of your peers on their plans and activities.
Conclusion & Meta-Reflection: Reflect on your fellowship experience. What did you learn? What changes have you made in your teaching and using OER materials and methods? What do you want to learn and do next?
This experience has allowed me an opportunity to consider and reconsider my teaching philosophy, learning and course goals, and explore select resources while connecting with other educators. OER-OER-enabled pedagogy has profound implications for my teaching practice and will truly serve my students. It is only through exploration, an open-mindset, and willingness to be generous we can continue to do the important work of teaching and learning
I definitely have gained more confidence and feel more open about using, creating and engaging with OERs. I am so glad that I took the time to be a part of this circle. I see the value of having an open mind and continuously growing in our teaching/learning adventure. Therefore, I will continue reflecting on my pedagogical profile so I can provide the best learning experience to my learners.
My experience as a Lumen Circles fellow has enabled me to learn my teaching strengths and weaknesses, and identify opportunities where I can bolster or expand my pedagogical practice. The content learned in this fellowship, the enlightened feedback from our facilitator and other educators, and the associated readings for the OER & OEP fellowship were enlightening, supportive, and empowering. Not only has this fellowship experience been personally and professionally fulfilling, it has also benefited my students. The reflective lessons, suggestions on evidence-based teaching practices, and appreciative-inquiry feedback from the other fellows helped to shape my thoughts and ideas about how to redesign instruction within individualized class sessions. The only advice I can give is to take time to learn about your pedagogical practices and commit to making systemic changes. Being part of a Lumen Circles fellowship is a good start.
The Lumen Circle is a learning place, and I appreciate all of the ideas and feedback I received. I implemented two of my ideas — I opened the classroom discussion to perspectives that address student points of view, and I used multimedia channels (written and audio) for formative feedback and assessment. In the future, I plan to add discussion topics that reflect student commonalities, and create teams representing either organization social media use or employee personal use of social media, instead of each team covering both (Composition and Research). My students benefitted from these strategies because I can see the light bulb flash on as they make connections. For future Lumen fellows, and any educator who wants to improve their students’ learning experience, I highly recommend this two-month fellowship because the communication and sharing between educators help us all to grow. Understanding how and why we teach the way we do is critical to professional development — and improving the learning experience for our students. The realizations we uncover during our sharing could turn on our own light bulbs and help us create activities and establish teaching practices that are more inclusive and even more impactful for our students.
Participating in the Teaching with OER & OER-enabled Pedagogy Circle has changed how I view OER as a pedagogical tool for active learning, student engagement, and inclusion. Previously, my enthusiasm for OER was focused on the cost savings and the flexibility it gave me with course content, in a very traditional, instructor-led way. Now I see how it can help reshape the course in a more student-led way.
What are Lumen Circles?
Lumen Circles are professional development experiences that use virtual learning communities to connect faculty members with peers and help them hone their expertise as student-centered teachers.
Grounded in evidence-based teaching practices and self-reflection, Lumen Circles work well for any faculty member, in any discipline, and at any stage of career.
How Do Lumen Circles Work?
Set goals. Identify how you want to develop your teaching practice and pedagogical profile.
Build skills. Virtual, workshop-style learning opportunities expand your teaching repertory, help you work smarter through teaching “hacks,” and deepen your understanding of evidence-based practices.
Teach and reflect. Apply what you’re learning, consider how it’s working for your students and where to improve.
Share via virtual learning circles. Connect with peers, exchange feedback, and collect new ideas through expertly-facilitated learning circles. Our user-friendly platform makes it simple to connect and collaborate.
Recognize growth and progress. Track progress towards goals and see your teaching evolve as you incorporate new practices with students.
Pick the Offering that Works for You
We offer Lumen Circles experiences with different focus areas, depth, and duration levels.
- Lumen Circle Fellowships: Build skills in targeted areas, apply what you’re learning, and collaborate within a virtual learning circle
Learn more about which fellowship suits you in a Lumen Circles: What to Expect Webinar.
What’s Your Role?
Your connection with students is paramount to their success, but knowing how to reach them can be challenging. Lumen Circles provide opportunities to expand your teaching repertory in areas you want to grow. You can join colleagues to learn, share ideas, compare experiences, and be part of a thriving community focused on evidence-based teaching for today’s students.
Lumen Circles complement your center’s resources and priorities. Some centers offer a full menu of programs but struggle to generate meaningful evaluation data. Others cater to new faculty, but they sometimes overlook faculty who are later in their careers. Still others struggle to meet the needs of part-time faculty or graduate students. We can tailor offerings to fit the faculty members you want to reach with skill-building and professional growth focused on teaching practices that impact student success. We also offer flexible options around pricing and scale.
Recognizing student success is a result of faculty success, Lumen Circles can help you provide a broader foundation of faculty support to transform teaching and learning with a focus on evidence-based instructional practices. We can also help you track alignment and measure progress towards institutional and faculty goals for improving teaching practice.
Lumen Circles FAQs
Do you have a question we don’t answer here? Contact us or send a note to info@lumenlearning.com.
Lumen Circles’ evidence-based teaching framework uses a methodology and process originally adapted from research published in Taking College Teaching Seriously: Pedagogy Matters by Gail Mellow, Diana Woolis, Marisa Klages-Bombich and Susan Restler. In work funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Lumen expanded the framework to add a “Belonging” theme that fully incorporates practices associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion into the Lumen Circles model. The framework identifies practices that increase student success, according to research evidence. Lumen Circles’ methodology guides faculty members through a process to recognize, explore and apply these effective practices in their teaching. It helps them become more aware and purposeful about making pedagogical choices that support student success.
Primary principles include:
- Self-reflection: Faculty fellows examine their own teaching practices to become more aware of pedagogical choices and their impact on student success.
- Appreciative Inquiry: This inquiry method invites educators to recognize and celebrate their strengths and what’s working in their teaching practice, and then using this as a foundation for self-directed growth and improvement.
- Evidence-based Instructional Principles: To help faculty make the learning environment more student-centered, we encourage them to explore and try out specific practices aligned in four distinct dimensions of teaching practice: Supportive, Challenging, Organized, and Varied.
- Pedagogical Analytics: As fellows progress through the Lumen Circles experience, we measure changes in faculty teaching patterns, progress towards their teaching goals, and how this aligns with institutional goals and changes in student outcomes.
We construct virtual learning circles with careful attention to the goals and context of faculty members participating in Lumen Circles fellowships. Learning circles always align with the theme of the fellowship to connect faculty with peers working to expand their teaching practice in similar directions. As a rule, learning circles include faculty from multiple institutions teaching in related disciplines, such as STEM or social sciences. We may make exceptions to this rule in order to support specific institutional objectives, such as learning circles to connect faculty with peers from their own institution.
We coordinate start and end dates for Lumen Circles fellowships and other professional development programs to align with the academic calendar and windows when the experience will be most productive for participating faculty members. Staggered start dates generally coincide with the start of term for spring (winter), summer, and fall. Depending on interest, faculty availability, and demand, we can add additional fellowship terms as needed.
Note the Lumen Circles experience does require that faculty are actively teaching during a majority of their fellowship term because reflective practice is most beneficial when there are immediate opportunities to consider teaching choices, evaluate what’s working and try out new pedagogical directions.