Open Education: Opening the Door
Open Education is an approach to teaching and learning that treats knowledge as a shared public good. It emphasizes access, adaptability, and collaboration. It encourages educators and students to co-create learning experiences that are responsive, inclusive, and grounded in care. It can lead to learning becoming deeper and more meaningful.
At Trent University, Open Education connects naturally to our commitments to student success, equity, Indigenization, and innovative teaching. It offers educators practical ways to reduce barriers, adapt teaching materials to their context, and build learning environments that feel more human and relational.
Open Education is the why behind many of the practices explored in this book. This is an invitation to open things up, a little at a time. Let’s get the door just a little ajar.
The Call: An Invitation to Act
Use Open Education to:
-
Make learning more accessible
Reduce financial and structural barriers so that students can engage fully from day one. -
Make teaching more flexible
Revise open materials so they reflect your learners, your discipline, and your teaching approach. -
Make education more human
Center relationships, trust, collaboration, and care for students and educators.
Examples from Practice
-
An instructor replaces a costly textbook with an open textbook or open access readings.
-
A course outline is shared openly so students can see before enrolling how learning outcomes, assessments, and activities connect. Or to find out early that their textbook is going to be free!
-
Students are invited to contribute examples, resources, or explanations that improve the course for future learners in a a student co-created project.
These are not small acts, but they are manageable and signal trust, agency, and belonging to students.
Your Response: A Short Action Plan
Take 5 minutes to respond.
What is one way you could use Open Education in your teaching (or learning) this term?
-
What barrier might it reduce?
-
What flexibility might it create?
-
Who would benefit most?
Below is just an empty space to envision your response. Feel free to keep track of your responses in your own way. You will be asked to make a short response in each chapter, so collecting them all in one space would be a very learner-centred thing for you to do for yourself!
My first open step will be:
(Keep it small. One action is enough. And it’s okay if you are not ready to take action yet.)
Looking Ahead: Connecting to the Next Chapter
This chapter introduced Open Education as a mindset and set of values. Open education has purpose. Chapter 2 focuses on Open Educational Resources (OER): the openly licensed materials that make Open Education tangible, adaptable, and sustainable in everyday teaching at Trent.
If Open Education is the why, OER are often the where we begin. Are we ready to begin? Oh, we are!
Deep Dive: Learn More About Open Education
The Open Education Handbook
A collaboratively written, global guide to Open Education covering principles, practices, policy, and real-world use.
Why this resource?
-
Openly licensed
-
Practical and educator-focused
-
Values-driven
-
Excellent grounding before moving into OER specifics
This is a great resource if you want to understand the broader landscape behind the work that we’ll explore in the rest of this book.
