The Impact of Open Educational Resource Professional Development for Teachers in Secondary Education

Literature

Previous secondary OER research has demonstrated that teachers’ perceptions of OER improve because of engaging in OEP (Karunanayaka et.al, 2015). Tang (2020) found that teachers’ attitudes became more positive, and they perceived themselves to be better at finding OER by the end of a 16-week study. However, finding and adopting OER is only part of the equation; the ability to adapt OER is the characteristic that distinguishes OER from open access or other copyrighted digital materials. Creative Commons licenses, for example, invite and allow users to make changes to material as well as delineate how a revised or remixed material can be redistributed. Blomgren (2018) remarks that secondary teachers can take advantage of OER to personalize their instruction to enhance diversity as well as to differentiate learning to be more inclusive of students’ needs. This heightens teacher creativity and encourages collaboration (Baas et al., 2019). Nonetheless, adapting OER requires skills that must be learned and practiced. Wolfenden and Adinolfi (2019) found that the process of localization, or adapting OER for the local teaching context, was more challenging for teachers than was suggested in the OEP literature.

Arispe & Hoye (2023) posit there are OER competencies that scale in complexity as teachers engage in OEP. However, for every competence learned and practiced, there are barriers that prevent teachers from developing these competencies fully. Blomgren (2018) and Tang (2020) point out that digital and information literacy gaps become major roadblocks for OER and OEP sustainability. Further, it is well documented that secondary teachers are suspicious about the quality of the materials they find online (Blomgren & McPherson, 2018). This suspicion often stems from a lack of digital literacy and being able to vet digital materials related to their quality as well as their degree of “openness” which is connected to licensing and copyright awareness (Baas et al. 2019; Hood, 2018; Tang & Bao, 2020). “If teachers find a resource that would be of interest, then capacity will become an issue. Most teachers mentioned that the technical capacity to adapt OER is a concern, which is partly related to their limited awareness” (Baas et al., 2019, p. 8). Beaven (2018) corroborates the prevalence of these barriers, indicating that the empirical evidence for teacher OER reuse is lacking. Baas and Schuwer (2020) agree and report that teachers are adapting “resources that need to be more context specific or are on specialized subjects” (p.538) but that they only share their materials with peers locally. This makes it especially difficult for OER researchers to fully capture reuse and redistribution, owing to what Beaven (2018) coins “dark reuse” (2018). Ultimately, Beaven suggests the missing ingredient to mitigating the lack of reuse is teacher OER support. Van Allen and Katz (2019) concur, concluding that “teacher educators are well-positioned to evolve future use of open practices within the secondary curriculum” (p.318).

Unfortunately, little research has evaluated the potential for PD to overcome these barriers and build OER competencies. Van Allen and Katz (2019) suggest a model that prioritizes pre-service teachers as key change agents because they can be trained while finishing their degree. But what about in-service teachers? As Hood and Littlejohn (2017) point out, “the continued professional learning of educators is a critical component for ensuring ongoing improvement and innovation in education and the adoption of new practices” (p.1586). Their study demonstrates that teachers not only become more knowledgeable about OER but that their teaching practice also evolves. Their research underscores the need for practical, situational professional development to occur. Participants in their study, for example, said that step by step guides and experimentation with OER were critical to the process. In a similar way, Karunanayaka et.al (2018) used a DBR approach to examine the professional development potential of Scenario-Based Learning (SBL) in a MOOC to impact OER and OEP amongst practitioners. They found that some of the barriers participants encountered were lack of time to complete tasks and challenges using the MOOC platform or SBL since these were new to most of the practitioners. Nonetheless, participants reported that peer feedback and collaborative group work were supportive strategies that helped them overcome these challenges. What is clear is that teacher professional development is integral to improving education (Kennedy, 2016; Misra, 2018) and secondary in-service teachers lack OER-oriented professional development, specifically. Understanding the potential impacts of PD as well as identifying challenges secondary teachers experience in the OEP process is integral to the sustainability of OER going forward.

Background

In 2016, Arispe conducted a needs assessment to determine what world language teachers needed to adapt to new state standards. This was done in the mountain-west region of the United States where Arispe is a university professor and is actively engaged with the secondary world language teaching community. The needs assessment revealed that teachers received minimal discipline-specific professional development from their districts as well as unevenness of professional development provided to teachers in rural communities. As a result, the Pathways Project was created in 2018 to share K-16 ancillary activities to support world language teaching and learning. Since its inception in 2018, the PP has evolved from a primarily local endeavor to a global community where teachers engage in OEP centered on best practices in teaching. More information about the design of the PP team can be found in (Arispe & Hoye, 2023).

This case study reflects the first instance when the PP strategically engaged with the in-service teacher community to investigate how secondary world language teachers perceived and utilized the PP OER materials as a result of PD. The following research questions were considered:

1. Following a one-hour synchronous training, what do secondary teachers learn about OER and how do they perceive OER materials for teaching and learning?

2. How do secondary teachers intend to reuse and revise OER?

3. How do teachers actually reuse and revise OER they used for their class?

4. Does OEP help teachers identify and apply best teaching practices?

5. What barriers do secondary teachers encounter when they retain, reuse, and/or revise?

Data Collection Tools and Research Procedures

The researchers used a listserv from the State Department of Education to contact all secondary world language teachers for recruitment to participate in a 2021 spring cohort. Prior to commencing the study, all participants signed and completed necessary Institutional Review Board consent. Table 1 describes the participants across demographics and teaching experience, including language and level(s) taught as well as familiarity with the researchers’ institution, specifically the Department of World Languages.

Research Procedure

The overarching goal of this study was to evaluate the impact small-scale PD has on a teacher’s ability to engage in OEP and the scope was limited to the first three “Rs”, retain, reuse, revise. Participants were required to attend a one-hour synchronous training that covered two principal topics: 1) a 45-minute overview of the Pathways Project and OER and 2) a 15-minute explanation of how to complete the required activities in the study. Asynchronous assignments (treatments) were used in tandem with the synchronous meeting.

Specifically, participants were asked to complete two videos using Screencastify, a web-based screen-recording tool. Given the context of the pandemic, it was impossible for the researchers to meet with the teacher participants in person and screen recordings were used as a viable method to capture what they learned and how they retained the OER.

In the first video, participants were asked to enable the webcam only and prompted to answer the following questions based on what they remembered from the synchronous training:

• What is your definition of OER?

• What do you think are some benefits of OER?

• What do might be some concerns?

The webcam allowed the researchers to ensure they did not search for or read a definition online. Immediately following the first video, participants were asked to complete a second 10-minute video. This time, they were prompted to record both their screen and webcam and to:

1. Determine the unit and main vocabulary or thematic topic.

2. Open the browser and type: The Pathways Project, https://www.boisestate.edu/pathwaysproject/

3. Set a timer for 10 minutes.

4. Find two activities aligned to one’s unit.

5. Verbalize one’s experiences, thoughts, actions, and feelings while locating two activities that align to the unit selected.

Participants were given ten minutes so that the researchers could consider the feasibility to navigate the OER tool efficiently and effectively in a realistic setting. Secondary teachers have challenging time constraints preparing classes and the researchers were interested in determining if the PD provided was sufficient to successfully guide their navigation of the repository under normal circumstances.

The researchers used deductive coding for the first video based on the OER literature related to general definitions and perceptions of OER, including predictions about potential benefits and barriers. A coding comparison in NVivo revealed 0.80 reliability for deductive analysis. The second video was coded differently. First, the researchers analyzed and recorded how long it took participants to locate and select each activity to understand their ability to retain OER. Second, the researchers independently tagged key instances where participants encountered barriers or indicated how they would reuse or revise the OER. Immediately after completing videos one and two, participants were asked to complete a survey where they rated their level of satisfaction with the activities. The survey also required participants to indicate the degree to which they intended to revise each activity (either to keep it as is, make slight adjustments, or make major changes). These questions were based on a Likert scale, but participants could also provide their rationale with open-ended (optional) responses, as well. Finally, participants were asked to implement one of the activities they selected with one of their classes. Once classroom implementation was complete, each participant attended a semi-structured interview with the researchers. The interview allowed participants to explain how they adapted the activity to meet their needs as well as to offer suggestions on how to improve the PP OER tool. The researchers then met to discuss coded observations from video two as well as the findings from the semi-structured interviews to analyze participant behaviors in reusing and revising OER that will be presented in Table 4.

In summary, the procedure had two rounds of data collection following two treatments (the PD synchronous online training and classroom implementation). Table 2 below presents the treatment and data collection procedures for cycle two of the DBR informed exploration phase.

Teachers’ Knowledge and Perceptions Regarding OER

How Teachers Intend to Reuse and Revise OER

The survey asked participants to indicate what they would need to do to use the OER in their classroom: (1) make slight changes, 2) make significant changes or 3) make no changes), answering the second part of research question two “Upon initial review, how do they intend to reuse and revise them?” Although each participant selected two activities to rate, Participant A was only successful in selecting one activity, therefore, there were a total of nine ratings. There was one instance where a teacher would use an activity without making any changes (1/9, 11%). There were 6 instances where teachers would make slight changes (6/9, 67%) and three instances where teachers would make significant changes (3/9, 33%). These results are displayed in Table 4 according to individual cases.

How Teachers Actually Reuse and Revise Activities

Participants were asked to implement one of the two activities they rated. Once complete, participants individually attended a semi-structured interview, allowing the researchers to probe about their reuse and revise practices. There were three main findings that emerged. First, most teachers had to make slight changes to the OER to include a larger class size. Only a few teachers made significant changes by creating and integrating additional worksheets, pre-tasks, and/or rubrics. Second, several teachers requested the interface of the OER tool be improved by removing large amounts of instructions. They suggested glossing techniques like bolding keywords or adding instructional videos to access teaching materials faster and to vet if they would use the activity before having to read instructions about how to implement it. Third, several participants suggested adding searchable keywords to locate key information that aligned to their curricula.

Case by Case: Teacher Participants’ Individual OEP Journey

The researchers were interested in looking at participants’ individual experiences and their OEP development related to the PD synchronous and asynchronous components. Table 4 summarizes salient themes that characterize each participant’s knowledge, perceptions, and behaviors because of treatments one and two. This analysis addresses the fourth and fifth research questions, “Does OEP help teachers apply best teaching practices?” and “What barriers do secondary teachers encounter when they retain, reuse, and/or revise?”

In one example, Participant D has a basic understanding of OER post training. She favorably perceives the PP OER while also emphasizing valuing activities that are “complete”. Survey results indicate she intends to make no changes to one activity and slight changes to the other. The interview reveals that she did make slight changes but that these were limited entirely to scope; she edits the activity to use for a larger class size and changes some vocabulary items to fit her curriculum. In comparison, Participant B also has a basic knowledge of OER but intends to make significant changes to the OER. The semi-structured interview reveals that her behavior is consistent with her intention, and she applies best practices in her revisions. For example, she scaffolds the materials by modifying them to be more comprehensible by adding images. Similarly, she adds sentence starters to support learners who need this scaffolding when producing output in French. In a third example, Participant E, like B and D, has a basic understanding of OER and intends to make slight changes to one activity and significant changes to the other. She does apply best teaching practices through major revisions by creating an accompanying handout to help students supply responses in German, similar to the sentence starters Participant B creates for her French students. However, video two revealed that Participant E also encounters barriers related to information literacy when retaining the activities in the first place. At one point, she states she is “overwhelmed”. And unlike the other four participants who went about one minute over the intended time, Participant E finishes retaining two activities in twice as much time (20+ minutes).