Room 2: Fostering Belonging and Success Through Open Engaged Pedagogy

As teachers, we’ve struggled with glazed eyes, blank looks, and preparing lectures that seem to go nowhere. As students, we’ve struggled to stay awake and complained about course content and materials that don’t seem to make a difference in our lives. Open, engaged pedagogy using open educational resources addresses this struggle by changing the paradigm. Learning is a practice of freedom. In this model, learners are teachers, and teachers are learners. We’ll describe our journey with the Guided Pathways Project with Open Oregon Educational Resources. Together, we developed 12 free textbooks and courses in Sociology, HDFS, and Criminal Justice. But more than saving money, we increased learner confidence and teacher efficacy. And we supported DEI too. How did we do it? By using principles of open engaged pedagogy - the idea that students come into the classroom with strengths, that they can create knowledge, and that this knowledge can become part of a wider, more inclusive project.