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OER math
Math

New OER Math Curriculum

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

The world of Open Educational Resources (OER) is growing by leaps and bounds every day as more and more people contribute their expertise. Since the resources shared are free and open to anyone, they are a wonderful choice for district adoption, leaving the funding normally spent on expensive textbooks to be used for technology to enhance learning. (You can learn more about OER in this blog.) I’ve recently discovered an excellent math curriculum for grades 6-8 that is complete, based on the standards, and incorporates problem-based learning.

What They Offer

Open-Up Resources and Illustrative Mathematics together provide a ton of classroom-ready content for educators with three main design principles in mind:

  • Access for All – The curriculum is based on the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework.
  • Presume Competence – The activities in these materials position students to capitalize on their existing abilities and provide supports that eliminate potential barriers to learning when they arise. Each lesson is designed for a wide range of abilities, and all students are given access to grade-level problems.
  • Strengths-Based Approach – All students, including students with disabilities, are resourceful and resilient members of the mathematics community. When the unique strengths and interests of students with disabilities are highlighted during class discussions, their contributions enhance the learning of all students in the classroom.

In addition, the curriculum offers support in each lesson for students with disabilities and for English Language Learners (ELLs). And assessments for each unit are also available, along with practice problems, downloads, and family materials. All of the content can be accessed via print, imported into a district LMS, or used in OneNote.

A typical lesson includes four parts:OER math

  • A warm-up
  • One or more instructional activities
  • The lesson synthesis
  • A cool-down

There is a detailed teacher’s guide as well, making this a complete package for middle school mathematics. Tested in 175 classrooms during the 2016-2017 school year, this content is well worth your time. And with the money you save from not buying textbooks, you can provide more professional development for staff and more technology resources for students. It’s a definite win/win.

 

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Open Education Resources
AdvocacyEducational Trends

Texas Going Open, Thanks to Legislation

by Jennifer Bergland
written by Jennifer Bergland

Last October, I wrote a blog post on Open Education Resources (OER). While doing the research, I realized that the state of Texas needed to do a better job of embracing and promoting these resources. This led to the drafting and eventually passing of several bills that will make it easier for teachers and districts to access and utilize high-quality open education resources. SB 810 defined OER as:

Resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that allows for free use,
reuse, modification, and sharing with others

What That Means

The key phrases in the definition are “free,” “reuse,” and “modify.” In order for a resource to be considered an open resource, it has to not only be free, but the user must also have the rights to reuse all or part of it for his own purpose. Let’s take, for example, a high school English literature teacher preparing to teach a unit on Shakespeare who finds the play As You Like It, on the OER Commons website. In order for this resource to truly be an openly-licensed material, the entity that is hosting this resource would grant the teacher the rights to use and adapt all or part of the play. You will notice that the license allows you to remix and share the resource so it qualifies as an OER.

The legal definition of open educational resources, as defined by SB 810, also identifies these resources as full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, or any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge. As an example, Pearson has a sixth grade math course available which a district could use as is or adapt to meet the district’s specific learning goals. This course could easily be inserted into a district learning management system and be reworked and adjusted to meet the district’s curriculum design.

Texas Use of OER

The ability to take a resource and adapt it to meet a district’s scope and sequence and learning objectives is one of the reasons Texas districts have begun investigating and using open education resources. According to the most recent SpeakUp Survey, 42% of Texas administrators have implemented some form of OER within their district, and an additional 12% are considering it. 44% of the technology leaders in Texas consider OER to be one of the high growth digital initiatives.

SpeakUp Survey

These numbers will increase as some as the elements of SB 810 are implemented. TEA is required to have an OER repository that will be used by educators as a place to share materials created by districts, teachers, or the state. The new law also will create an instructional materials review service that will compare materials based on price, technical requirements, TEKS alignment, and editorial reviews. This service will help provide the quality control that has been missing for free materials.

Openstax LogoIn addition, the state budget for the next two years includes $20 million for the state to arrange for an outside entity to produce open educational resources for the state’s use.  It is expected that TEA will begin with instructional materials that meet the specifications for the English Language Arts adoption that will be implemented in the 2019-2020 school year. This would give districts the ability to use high-quality OER materials for this adoption, which has the potential to save them money. TEA recently announced the availability of some OER that were acquired by TEA for district use. 

 

Open Educational Resources Blog Series

To help facilitate the exploration of open educational resources, I will write a monthly blog post that will hopefully answer the questions you may have. Some of the things I hope to address in the blog series are:

  • What districts in Texas are using open education resources and with what results
  • What resources are already available, both within and outside of Texas
  • Updates on the implementation of the OER bills that were  recently passed
  • How to create your own OER
  • How to give attribution for open education resources and what the different licenses mean  
  • The best practices in implementing OER.

These are just a few of the topics we will explore. Please use the comment section below to give me feedback or ask the burning questions you may have.  See you next month!

 

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math and science
Content AreasGood Teaching

Open Resources for Math and Science

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Need to model complex math and science concepts for your students? Use any of the 130 award-winning PhET math and science interactive simulations. Available for grades three through adult learners, these are  open educational resources (OERs), which means they are free to use. Each simulation will work on any device, making it perfect for 1:1 and BYOD classrooms, as well as those with only teacher projection.

Explore Simulations

Each PhET lesson (e.g. Balloons and Static Electricity simulation) comes replete with resources. Included are a video primer, lesson ideas, and teacher-submitted activities. Watch this video for an overview. A main goal of PhET is to assist students in becoming scientists. As learner-in-chief in their classroom, teachers ask questions (combine them with Quizziz or Kahoot for quick assessment) to highlight key concepts and spur deeper inquiry.

Measure Learning with Your Favorite Learning Management System (LMS)

Combine PhET and the Learning Management System (LMS) of choice to further support student learning. This can help students see what factors affect friction. Students can then respond to multiple choice questions or elaborate in short answer form.

Did you know? You can learn how to blend technology into instruction. Schedule an online or face-to-face professional learning session with TCEA’s Certified professional learning team.

Support Open Inquiry

Another approach involves using a student-centered strategy called POGIL (Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning). Students work in small groups with individual roles or in cooperative learning groups if the learning needs to be scaffolded. POGIL activities focus on core concepts. They encourage a deep understanding of course material and develop higher-order thinking skills. Find out more | See it in Action

Engage in Video-Based Reflection

Deepen reflective interactions focused on a simulation with video. Use Flipgrid to pose video questions about a simulation’s key concepts. Students respond via their mobile device’s built-in video camera.

Conclusion

These approaches and technologies are so easy, you can get going quickly. Select your interactive simulation and scaffold the inquiry with POGIL. Then, assess learning with retrieval practice tools (like Quizizz/Kahoot), and Flipgrid. Your students will be thrilled you made the effort!

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#GoOpen
AdvocacyEducational TrendsFunding

It’s Time: #GoOpen

by Jennifer Bergland
written by Jennifer Bergland

Many districts across the country are beginning to write or adapt existing educational materials in order to ensure the resources they place in front of their students closely align with their learning objectives. The #GoOpen initiative by the U.S. Department of Education is designed to help facilitate this movement. #GoOpen is the slogan for the DOE’s campaign that encourages states, school districts, and educators to use openly-licensed educational materials to transform teaching and learning. These materials are also known as OER (Open Educational Resources).

You might be asking, what are open education resources? Great question. Openly-licensed educational resources Pillars of OER
are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under a license that permits their free use, reuse, modification, and sharing with others. Not all OER materials are digital, but the #GoOpen movement is primarily focusing on those that are.

It’s important to note the difference between the terms “free” and “open.” A resource may be free, but you may not have the owner’s permission to reuse or modify the resource. To qualify as open, it must be free and provide users permission to modify and reuse the materials.

Why would a district want to create or modify instructional materials? Some districts claim that openly-licensed educational resources can drive equity by providing all students access to high-quality learning materials, no matter the size of the district’s budget. They also allow districts to update the learning materials whenever necessary either to support new state standards or to update the content.

Also, districts are seeing that the process of developing the materials energizes their teachers as they adapt and customize the learning materials to the needs of the students in their district. In addition to all of these great reasons, there also can be significant cost savings, which can translate into more funds for high-speed technical infrastructure and digital devices that can be used to access the new materials.

open-stickiesHow does a district get started? In order to support districts who are interested in developing some openly licensed educational resources, the #GoOpen campaign has developed a network of states and districts to serve as models and provide support and assistance. A great place to start is by downloading the GoOpen District Launch Packet. It has step-by-step instructions on how to approach the process. It tells you who should be involved, what types of questions you need to consider, and where to begin.

It also might be helpful to look at what some other districts are doing. The #GoOpen site has a list of districts grouped by their expertise and willingness to mentor other districts. They divide the districts up into two lists: #GoOpen Launch Districts and #GoOpen Ambassador Districts.

#GoOpen Launch Districts Will:

  • Identify a district #GoOpen team who will work to develop a strategy for the implementation of openly-licensed educational materials.
  • Commit to replace at least one textbook with openly-licensed educational materials in the next year.
  • Document and share their implementation process.

#GoOpen Ambassador Districts Will:

  • Mentor #GoOpen Launch Districts as they design and implement their strategy for transitioning to openly-licensed educational resources.
  • Share the openly-licensed materials they’ve created.

Districts Leading the Way

Broken Arrow Public Schools in Oklahoma is a #GoOpen Ambassador district. They have created several courses which are organized in Google Docs. You can access their materials and add them to your Google Drive. Remember, the hallmark of the term open is that they must be willing to share the materials and allow others to adapt and modify them.

Mark Officer, Executive Director of Secondary Administration at Broken Arrow Public Schools, attributes their success to the #GoOpendedication of the instructional staff who have led the process throughout. He noted that the teaching staff has been empowered by the curation process and that the students have positively responded to the change. So far, there have been around 100 teachers involved in the curation process, and he expects that number to grow to more than 200 by the end of this year. He feels that what these teachers have created is a better product than what they could purchase. Their initiative started at the secondary level and, because of their success, the elementary instructional staff is beginning to curate open educational resources as well.

#GoOpenEl Paso ISD is a #GoOpen Launch district. They have partnered with CK-12 to develop Flexbooks. El Paso has created quite a collection of Flexbooks in all four core subject areas. At the launch of their CK-12 partnership, Tim Holt, Executive Director of Blended Learning, in explaining one of the reasons they are moving to open materials, said, “Instead of us matching our curriculum to a pre-made textbook, we’ve done it the other way. We’ve made the textbook to match our curriculum.”

Teacher-created materials are not new. Teachers have created their own content since they were etching their lessons on the cave wall. How this movement differs is that, with the use of technology, teachers can share their work with a much larger audience and other educators can take their work and adapt it easily to suit their particular academic and instructional goals.

If you are interested in learning more, check out the resources below. If your school or district is already creating educational resources and you are willing to let others modify and reuse them, consider joining the #GoOpen movement by contacting the Department of Education at tech@ed.gov.

Resources for OER

 

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