International Journal of Open Educational Resources
discover the best sources for keeping up with open education developments , along with future workshop and learning opportunities to support their continuing professional development . While this curriculum design worked well , student evaluations suggested that week two was perhaps too early in the course to prepare them for that week ’ s advocacy-related assignment . The next iteration of the course is likely to shift the content so that advocacy is presented in week three .
Designing Assessments and Assignments
Using backward design ( Wiggins , Mc- Tighe , Kiernan , & Frost , 1998 ) to develop a course , one begins by identifying the student learning objectives . The next step is to decide what manner of assessment will determine if students achieve those objectives . Finally , the instructor creates the assignments that enables the effective assessment of student performance in demonstrating competency in achieving the objectives . It also helps when the assignments are practical , connected to students existing experience and are challenging , educational , and fun . This was the most challenging part of designing the course as there are a multitude of options for assignments and with only four contributing to the final grade , making the choices felt high-stakes .
OER Mythbusting where they selected one myth for analysis . They were asked to write a short essay reflecting on their myth and how they would respond to that myth and bust it in conversation with someone , a faculty member for example , who believed that myth . As most of the students were relatively new to open education , this assignment exposed them to the common misunderstandings about OER .
For week two ’ s advocacy topic , students needed to understand the important role that open education librarians play as advocates for affordable learning . The assignments would provide two opportunities to immerse themselves in this experience . For the discussion each student was assigned a nationally recognized open advocate to research and gather information about , and then share a profile of that advocate in their post . This worked well as each student contributed to a collaborative learning experience where all could become familiar with a large cohort of open advocates , their backgrounds and contributions to the movement . As this week ’ s content covered a number of
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