The instructional approach that I inquired about is open pedagogies. According to KPU, open pedagogies is committed to helping students access open resources, and helps students use these open resources to create content (KPU, n.d.). After researching this instructional approach, I realized that open pedagogies are a lot more accessible to the Elementary classroom than I anticipated. Before reading, my knowledge of using open resources was mainly skewed toward academic articles, although there is a whole range of open resources such as Youtube, Google Drive, and more (IA State, n.d.).

My Pod group is entirely elementary education students, so when researching open pedagogies I had this focus in mind throughout. Open pedagogies can look like a lot of things such as co-creating policies with students, creating meaningful assignments, and using open resources (KPU, n.d.).

Co-Creation:
Our group is doing our interactive learning design on the water cycle. Due to the nature of this course, we cannot co-create policies, rubrics, and schedules with our students because we are not working with our target group for this assignment (KPU, n.d.). However, if we were to take this topic and use it in our future classes, we could definitely apply these ideas. It is often talked about in the education field to create rubrics with our students so that they have more autonomy and understanding of assignments.

Meaningful Assignments:
KPU mentions that in open pedagogies, students should be creating projects that have a larger impact than just in the classroom (KPU, n.d.). IA State also mentions that a great way to do this is by collaborating as a class to create a textbook (IA State, n.d.). Our target students are in grade 2, so creating a textbook might be a little challenging. However, we could have students collaborate to create a collage of ideas they have learned. To go even further, students could then share this collage by presenting it to another group, creating a video of a puppet show, or putting it out on a bulletin board for others to see. This way, students are able to share what they have learned. Another way that we could incorporate this into our learning design is by having students write a letter or draw a picture about water conservancy for the local council.

Using Open Resources
One of the main parts of using open pedagogies is having students use open education resources so that they learn how to be a part of an online community (IA State, n.d.). In connection to creating meaningful assignments, when students use and contribute to the public good, students learn how to be a part of the public in a relevant way (IA State, n.d.). If you search on Youtube ‘The Water Cycle,’ there are a ton of videos created by hundreds of people that can contribute to the learning of students. Additionally, there are open resources students can use to store their files such as google drive. For the interactive learning design, students could use spaces such as google drive to store and share their work with other peers, and even the public.

Essentially, using open pedagogy can be a series of practice, learning style, or state of mind (IA State, n.d.). Educators can decide how they want to incorporate this instructional approach into their teachings, and whether this is something they feel students should be assimilating into their learning path. As we dive more into the technology generation, it is important to consider the prospect of open pedagogies and how this type of instruction can change the way technology is used in society.

Here is an example of an open ed resource on the water cycle:

References

Open Pedagogy. (n.d.). Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Retrieved Oct 5, 2022, from https://www.kpu.ca/open/pedagogy

Open Pedagogy. (n.d.). Iowa State University. Retrieved Oct 5, 2022, from https://iastate.pressbooks.pub/oerstarterkit/chapter/open-pedagogy/