I teach general education science - you know, the classes that barely anyone wants to take on campus. Nonmajors are forced into the classes because of general education graduation requirements and majors are exempt from taking the classes, while also holding the opinion that they are above taking such a class (really, they aren’t and most science students could use a good general education science class that humanizes science for them, but that’s probably a different piece of writing). They are also usually the classes that get the least amount of support out of our departments - the course I teach is taught only by a “loyal” team of adjuncts, with the occasional full-timer popping in for the fun of it if they need a class on the schedule. This lack of support is pretty clearly seen throughout the university community, so there is a perception that the classes aren’t valued by the institution. That perception gets passed down to students, who then wonder what the value of taking g...
With all the amazing synchronous activities on Day 3, I barely got to engage in the Day 3 materials in our STEM-H and Critical Digital Pedagogy course. So I'm skipping my reflection there, and opting to write today about today's topic: Open Pedagogy. Open Pedagogy was my gateway into Critical Digital Pedagogy. Open Pedagogy literally changed me as teacher. It was all Rajiv Jhangiani's fault. He came and spoke at Roger Williams my first year as an OER fellow (I had already bought into OER a few years prior) and he described projects where students were creators of content. And all of a sudden I asked myself "What would a non-majors science textbook look like if it were written by non-majors?" It looks like these websites. I've written about the project for the Open Pedagogy Notebook here , but I recently sat down and thought about some of the theoretical pieces that, while I didn't really consciously think of them when designing the project, absolut...