Deconstructing Open: Meaning and Bias in Pedagogy, Modality, and Access

Over the past few decades, the meaning of open has shifted from access to more recently including pedagogy and modality. In this session, we will facilitate conversation around the meaning of open as we discuss terms including open education, open educational practices, OER-enabled pedagogy, and open pedagogy. We will concentrate our discussion around three components – pedagogy, modality, and access – with an attempt to focus on the meaning of open as applied to each component. During this activity, we will examine our assumptions or biases. One example we will explore is the xMOOC, which has been described as a didactic approach with recorded lectures, readings, and quizzes. How do we deconstruct this type of open course in terms of pedagogy, modality, and access? Is it open pedagogy if it is open access but didactic in approach? We will utilize editable documents to facilitate this 50-minute activity. Please bring your ideas, definitions, examples, resources, and perspectives!