International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 185

Teaching Critical Thinking and Metaliteracy Through OER knowledge creation and sharing, and empowerment of learners” (Cronin & McLaren, 2018, slide 6). However, there can be a continuum model of practices (Stagg, 2014) or degrees of OEP (Ehlers, 2011, as cited in Cronin & McLaren, 2018a, p. 130). In courses that employ OEP, students generally work with OER and may be active creators of knowledge that will be shared beyond their instructor and potentially beyond their current classmates. In such courses, students move beyond what is seen as the traditional role of “student” to roles that are active, collaborative, and often contribute to the learning of others. Instructors employing OEP, whether partially or fully engaged with the full range of potential practices, need to prepare students for these roles, just as they need to prepare them for the topic of the course. In order for students to succeed, learning must center not only on disciplinary content, but also on a host of competencies that span the behavioral, cognitive, metacognitive, and affective. The metaliteracy conceptualization described below provides a framework for students to better meet unfamiliar learning situations encountered through OER use and for instructors to explore pedagogical practices that allow for opening education. Metaliteracy In an age and information environment where knowledge practices and skills evoking critical thinking are at a premium, the concept of metaliteracy provides a framework and a broad set of OER-based tools with the potential to expand students’ and others’ learning abilities. The framework is aptly named. One of the meanings of meta in Greek is “beyond,” so in the modern day, metaliteracy is what is needed beyond the basic literacies of reading and writing. It “... suggests a way of thinking about one’s own literacy. To be metaliterate requires individuals to understand their existing literacy strengths and areas for improvement and make decisions about their learning” (Mackey & Jacobson, 2014, p. 2). Metaliteracy, therefore, is a pedagogical model that emphasizes an individual’s method of learning and participating in today’s complex information environment (Mackey & Jacobson, 2019, p. xvii). Metaliteracy argues against passive learning, challenging students to reflect on and take ownership of a host of learner roles while acknowledging the need for incorporating four distinct learning domains. More specifically, the metaliteracy framework has at its core four goals, each of which has a number of learning objectives (Jacobson, Mackey, O’Keeffe, Forte, & O’Keeffe, 2018). These learning objectives are underpinned by learning domains designed to emphasize the depth of the learning process: affective, changes in learners’ emotions or attitudes through engagement with learning activities; behavioral, what competencies students have upon successful completion of learning activities; cognitive, what students should know upon successful completion of learning activities; and metacognitive, how students reflect on their 177