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Our third step in the #GoOpen Process

Click HERE to view the entire 3-step process we utilized to #GoOpen.

OER Adoption, Step 3. Desiging Engaging Student-Driven Learning Experiences. (11/16/15)

The following piece was authored by Mrs. Lori Secrist, one of our rock star teachers. Lori's Science classroom is a vibrant place where students passionately work to move skills forward. These are the steps Lori took on her personal journey from textbooks to Open Education Resources.

  1. As a Science teacher, my first step was to become familiar with the Next-Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Understanding the importance of providing students with three dimensional learning and assessment opportunities made me see the value of having flexible learning resources.  
  2. I identified the skills that students need to be college and career ready.
  3. I identified limitations with my curriculum.  I came to the realization that my curriculum was content driven, and all students studied the same thing at the same time no matter what their interests were.
  4. That realization led me to develop a new mindset:
    • I began to view content as a vehicle to help my students understand the concepts and gain the skills they need in order to be successful. This has allowed me to be more flexible in giving students the freedom of choice in the selection of specific content as long as students are improving their skills and building understanding.  
    • Outdated textbooks did not offer this type of flexibility, therefore, I needed to do something else. The textbooks were giving every child the same things in the same way and that did not maximize engagement for all of my students. My textbooks from 2007 lacked cutting edge scientific research that was relevant to my students lives. Very few things in my textbooks truly grabbed my students attention and inspired their curiosity. 
    • With the current quality Open Education Resources, I found I was able to move away from textbooks. This allowed me to spend more money on field trips to take my students out into the real world. It has freed up money for supplies to increase opportunities for investigation in my classroom. This is what captures a student’s imagination, inspires them to investigate the world around them and ask questions, and motivates them to want to learn so they can gain the knowledge and skills they need to make a difference in the world.
  5. I began providing more real world learning challenges for my students:
    • This has really allowed students the opportunity to drive their learning in the direction of their interests.
    • Challenges encourage students to look at problems from various angles and build understanding in a way that is meaningful to them. Students begin to see value in learning because it  helps them solve problems. Textbooks did not provide the depth that students needed to help complete these projects. Open Educational Resources provide them with the variety of information that they need from amazing sources from all over the world. In the end, the students build a much richer knowledge of the topic than if we would have just read about one point of view in a textbook, and in the process, they truly feel like they are making a difference by helping to solve a real world problem in their school or community.
  6. I redefined my role in the classroom. I have determined my job is to provide students with opportunities to develop their skills and to provide resources to build their own understanding of the world around them. This includes helping students become critical consumers of knowledge as well as helping them to evaluate their work and the work of their peers so they can learn how to continually grow and improve throughout their lives.  

I have found that allowing students to drive the direction of their learning can be very powerful. For example, Energy is a broad topic. Everyone in my class is not interested in just the basics of energy and electricity, but they are interested in making their school more efficient. In the process of finding ways to make their school more energy efficient, they needed to understand what electricity is, how it is made, how it is measured. When students saw the value of the learning, they were much more engaged, and they took pride in finding solutions to improve their school. Having reliable, up to date openly licensed resources that I can put at their fingertips makes this type of learning far less intimidating to plan for and to manage. It also fosters creativity and ingenuity in my students that may have been missed out on if we had simply stuck to the textbook.

Lori Secrist, Life Science Instructor and Pathway Lead
Williamsfield Schools
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