Equity and Access
To begin the discussion on access and equity, I will be focussing on the first article by Mays (2017). Mays (2017) asks “what exactly does it mean to engage in “Open Pedagogy?”. From my understanding, open pedagogy connects the theories of open education to open educational resources (OER’s). It is the praxis that educators partake in to commit to a learner-driven education. This was a lightbulb to me, because the course we are in, and the others I have taken this summer, have all been learner-driven. The use of OER’s have allowed us to learn remotely and take our learning into our own hands. Personally, I think that this type of open and online learning best suits my own needs. I am able to work at my own pace, and discover my own learnings through light instructor guidance. Not only that, but most, if not all, of the OER’s that I have used in this course and my other summer courses have been free!
This brings me to my next point, about access. Mays (2017) characterizes OER’s by the “5 R’s: they can be reused, retained, redistributed, revised, and remixed”. This means that for an OER to be open, everybody needs to be able to access them! This was a really interesting point that stood out to me in Mays’ (2017) article, about the accessibility of education in North America:
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that “higher education shall be equally accessible to all.” Yet, even in North America in 2017, “the likelihood of earning a college degree is tied to family income”.
To me, this was very relatable. How can higher education be equally accessible to all if you can’t afford the application fees to enroll? Even if you do get accepted into a program, there are so many fees, not to mention the textbook fees. This was another point that stood out to me in the article:
Even though 67% of college students in Florida and 54% of those in British Columbia cannot afford to purchase at least one of their required course textbooks, we more readily attribute their inability to complete assigned readings to laziness and entitlement than to unaffordability.
Wow. I can remember my first year at UVic, and I was in all of my pre-requisite classes (the big lecture-hall style classes where there are at least 100 students), and I needed at least one textbook for each of my 5 classes. Well all my textbooks were $100-200 each! This was insane to me, to spend upwards of $500 just on reading material that I may or may not use. That $500 could have been used to pay for a whole other course!
The shift towards OER’s and open education should be of utmost importance if we truly want higher education to be accessible for all. Just this week alone, all of our required readings are free and open-access. Why can’t other courses offer the same?
That was a bit of a rant, but I do want to mention a bit about Ryan’s Topic 3 post. Did anybody else know that our Brightspace data is collected this way? I remember last fall, one of our prof’s mentioned that they can see when we access something on Brightspace, but I had no idea it was this analytical and specific. That’s crazy to me! Obviously we agree to the collection of data when we enroll in a course, but does anyone else feel a bit uncomfortable by the privacy limits we have on Brightspace? It makes me think that if I don’t log in enough, an instructor may think I am slacking off. I’d love to hear some others’ thoughts on this!
Resources:
Mays, E. (Ed.). (2017). A guide to making open textbooks with students. Rebus Community. Retrieved from: https://press.rebus.community/makingopentextbookswithstudents/chapter/open-pedagogy/
Hannah Rochford August 15, 2021
Hi Emily,
Open ended resources are a game changer! All my classes I have taken this summer 4/5 of them used open ended resources. I am so grateful I didn’t have to spend more money on textbooks for my summer classes.
I thought a lot about the Brightspace data and had the exact same thought about if I am not logging in enough will they think I am “slacking off”. It adds on a bit of stress knowing that even though I feel as if I am learning a lot and doing the best I can, if a prof looks at my data could they disagree?
Very interesting.
Kayla Krug August 16, 2021
Hi Emily,
In my experience, before COVID I had not taken an academic course that did not require you to purchase some-sort of a textbook. Since then, I have taken many online courses that have these amazing resources and readings all online for free. Exactly as you said, textbooks are EXPENSIVE, and I think if professors can use other alternatives that is amazing.
It was very interesting to see how professors access data on Brightspace in Ryan’s post. I remember once I was in a course and I was falling behind and I actually had a professor message me saying “I’ve seen that you have yet to access these resources, is there something going on, can I help in anyway?” That was the first time I noticed that profs can basically see everything you access on their course page. It is a cool tool though because they are then able to reach out and see if they can provide any extra assistance. But I also remember feeling very worried that he thought I was intentionally not doing the readings.
Thanks for your post!
Kayla
kianaarch August 17, 2021
Emily,
I just came onto your blog after reading and replying to Riannes post, and I actually referred to that time our prof mentioned that they were able to see all of our data on brightspaces. I mentioned to Rianne that I felt like it was super intrusive and wondered if we ever agreed to our data being accessed like that? I don’t recall. I also can see how it’s beneficial to professors to track their students progress and see how much they are engaging, but at the same time we are adults and accountable for our own education.
On my blog, I also considered textbooks, and how each year I need to purchase less and less. I think the pandemic has forced some of the more old fashion profs to be exposed to online education and some of the great free resources it has to offer. I remember one prof telling me he had no clue how much the online world had to offer when it comes to education. He was able to find a free pdf version of our text that he had no clue about. I think this shift from the past year will push us closer to more open resources vs pricey textbooks.
Thanks for your post,
Kiana
rianneyuen August 19, 2021
Hi Emily,
It is crazy how much. money students spend on textbooks a semester. Now that there is more open learning, I find many of my classes do not require the student to purchase textbooks. Instead, there is required readings from free sources.
I was also a bit surprised when seeing what Brightspaces shows. I also feel like seeing this makes me feel question if I have done enough for the class. If those stats are professors are looking for, am I putting too much effort into my post? When I see those stats, It makes me think of getting %100 in participation and discussion marks. Are you marking me for the work I did, or the stats of my replies, posts, and attendance? All these questions come to mind when I saw Ryan’s Topic 3 post.
Thanks for sharing Emily!