According to Madland (2020), the fundamental goals of higher education are the following: creating new knowledge, sharing new knowledge, and providing services for the good of the economy. Given today’s advance technology, I personally believe that educators will be able to attain these goals. Educators just have to discover digital tools and educational practices that will enable them to help the learners to create knowledge, share knowledge, and provide services for the good of economy (DeRosa & Jhangiani, 2017). Accordingly, 21st century educators can best attain these goals through Open Pedagogy.
According to DeRosa & Jhangiani (2017), Open Pedagogy is a site of praxis where theories on learning, teaching, technology, and social justice are discussed. In other words, in Open Pedagogy, the learners can also be creators of information and not just simply a consumer of it. To practice Open Pedagogy, educators can use mobile cloud learning. According to Wang, Chen, and Khan (2014), with the integration of cloud computing in mobile learning, massive data storage, high performance computing, and easy accessibility became possible. Consequently, mobile cloud learning was able to have the following features: (1) storage and sharing, (2) universal accessibility, (3) collaborative interactions, and (4) learner-centered (Wang, Chen, and Khan, 2014). Looking into these features, one can say that it is aligned with the purpose of Open Pedagogy as well as the fundamental goals of higher education.
In order to achieve the goals of higher education through Open Pedagogy, educators should also adapt teaching practices that will enable the students to create, share, and apply their knowledge. For instance, DeRosa and Jhangiani (2017) suggested that teachers should encourage their students to engage in public chats with authors or experts. With this strategy, the educators will be able to attain the fundamental goals of higher education. To illustrate, when students converse with practitioners in the field, they will have the opportunity to share their knowledge through giving their insights, opinions, or comments. Additionally, when students engage in public chats, their learning experience becomes dialogic. This means that they get to see various perspectives on a certain topic that the students need to synthesize. Accordingly, the students’ synthesized information will be considered as a new knowledge. Since public chats can be seen by everyone, other learners can read and learn from the dialogue between the students and the experts. Lastly, engaging the students in public chats with authors is already an act of providing a service for the community. Being part of conversations in academic and transdisciplinary work is tantamount to contributing to OERs, one way to enhance knowledge commons.
In addition to adapting teaching practices that can fit Open Pedagogy, educators should also create positive learning spaces that will help the students achieve the fundamental goals of higher education. Learning spaces refer to a place where teaching and learning occur. Kral & Schwab (2012) suggested that in order to create positive learning spaces, it should be designed to make learners learn. In a positive learning space, the educators are not “bosses” because they recognize their learners as autonomous. Additionally, in this learning space, the facilitators also work collaboratively and respectfully with their learners. Because the facilitators demonstrated how collaboration work, the learners know how to share new knowledge to other learners. More so, the learning space can also encourage the learners to learn something that can be beneficial to the community. Consequently, the learners will be inspired to put their theories into practice. Hence, to attain the fundamental goals of higher education through Open Pedagogy, learning spaces should be created to make the learners learn.
In conclusion, the fundamental goals of higher education can be achieved through Open Pedagogy. Open Pedagogy is a site of praxis that enables the learners to actively participate in learning. More so, with technological advancements like mobile cloud learning, learners encounter less obstacles when they learn through Open Pedagogy. This is because mobile cloud learning allows huge data storage, faster computing, and easy accessibility. Furthermore, to aid the learners, educators should adapt teaching practices that will allow the learners to create, share, and apply their knowledge. For instance, teachers can host public discussions to allow the students to interact with experts of practitioners. Lastly, to encourage the students to take over their learning, educators should create positive learning spaces.
References
DeRosa, R., & Jhangiani, R. W. (2017). Open pedagogy. In Guide to making open textbooks with students. Retrieved from https://press.rebus.community/makingopentextbookswithstudents/chapter/open- pedagogy/
Kral, I., & Schwab, R. G. (2012). Learning spaces: Youth, literacy and new media in remote Indigenous Australia.
Madland, C. (2020). Topic 3 (July 16-21). http://teaching.madland.ca. https://teaching.madland.ca/edci339-july20/home/topic-03
Wang, M., Chen, Y., & Khan, M. J. (2014). Mobile cloud learning for higher education: A case study of Moodle in the cloud. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 15(2). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v15i2.1676