With the Coronavirus (COVID-19) rapidly spreading worldwide, several countries have initiated several strategies to stop the spread of this virus, including school closures. UNESCO stated that, as of 17 May, almost 1.21 billion learners were affected, accounting for 69.3% of the worlds student population. Particularly, China was the first to adopt the policy of “Disrupted Classes, Undisrupted Learning” by providing online, distance and remote teaching. However, several educational challenges appeared during this unexpected critical situation of COVID-19 outbreak. For instance, in this first-ever application of pure long-term online learning (without face-to-face learning or blended learning), both teachers and learners should not feel that they are left alone during the teaching and learning processes. Additionally, new effective pedagogical approaches are needed to keep learners motivated and engaged during this long period of online learning. In this context, several researchers suggested the use of Open Educational Practices (OEP) and Resources (OER) to provide engaging and interactive experience.
Additionally, UNESCO (2019) provided five objectives that should be focused on facilitation of OER adoption, namely: (?。?Building capacity of stakeholders to create access, re-use, adapt and redistribute OER; (ⅱ) Developing supportive policy; (ⅲ) Encouraging inclusive and equitable quality OER; (ⅳ) Nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER; (ⅴ) Facilitating international cooperation. Therefore, this handbook discusses the use of OEP and OER during COVID-19 outbreak through global vivid stories and experiences, and in line with the five UNESCO objectives. It also discusses OER competencies for OEP. Finally, this handbook provides guidelines to both teachers and learners to facilitate OEP and OER application.
1.Background of using open educational practices during the COVID-19 outbreak
1.1.Importance of open educational practices during COVID-19
The Chinese Ministry of Education (MoE) and several education specialists and universities have started discussing the use of information and communication technology(ICT) to reform the entire educational system in the midst of this coronavirus outbreak and provide online and distance learning instead, even with disrupted classes. While online and distance education is not new in China, several challenges have arisen in China and worldwide regarding this type of system in this unexpected and critical situation: Lack of preparation time; Teacher/learner isolation; Need for effective pedagogical approaches.
To help overcome the problem of limited time to prepare online learning content, teachers should make use of the thousands of open educational resources (OER) published by the MoE and available in other national and international repositories as well as public online tools, platforms, and enabling technologies.
1.2.Implications for teaching and learning
OEP have the ability to improve the opportunity of accessing good educational content for learners, hence help in achieving accessible learning and lifelong learning. Additionally, OEP allow learners to be engaged and active during the learning process. Furthermore, OEP go a step beyond active learning by engaging learners in creating and revising OER, hence contributing to the learning of the learners who come after them. This can further help learners gain digital literacy skills (searching, assessing, and identifying online resources), which are fundamental for 21st-century literacy. Moreover, OEP offer potential for new approaches to pedagogy that, by one observation, can create “a site of praxis, a place where theories about learning, teaching, technology, and social justice enter into a conversation with each other and inform the development of educational practices and structures”. Some innovative pedagogy have been explored in China to ensure the quality of higher education course during COVID-19 outbreak.
As both OEP and OER can facilitate the learning and teaching processes during the educational disruption due to the COVID-19 outbreak, several international organizations, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) and Commonwealth of Learning (COL) have shared quality OER and tools on their webpages for teachers and learners to use during the educational process at home. Additionally, ALECSO, for instance, is now providing OER trainings to help teachers in the Arab region create and share their OER with others to maintain undisrupted learning.
隨著新型冠狀病毒肺炎疫情在世界范圍內(nèi)迅速蔓延,一些國家已經(jīng)采取一些策略來阻止這種病毒的傳播,包括關(guān)閉學校。聯(lián)合國教科文組織指出,截至5月17日,將近12.1億名學習者受到影響,占世界學生總數(shù)的69.3%。特別是中國,第一個采取“停課不停學”的政策,提供在線學習和遠程教育。然而,在新冠肺炎疫情暴發(fā)這一意想不到的危急情況下,教育方面出現(xiàn)了一些挑戰(zhàn)。例如,首次長期應(yīng)用純在線學習(沒有面對面學習或混合學習),教師和學習者都感到在教學過程中被孤立了。此外,為了讓學習者能在漫長的在線學習期間保持積極性和參與性,需要新的有效的教學方法。在這種情況下,一些研究人員建議使用開放教育實踐(后文簡稱OEP)和開放教育資源(后文簡稱OER)來提供吸引人的互動體驗。
此外,聯(lián)合國教科文組織2019年在《開放式教育資源建議書》中提出了五個目標:增強利益攸關(guān)方創(chuàng)建、獲取、再利用、改編和重新發(fā)布開放教育資源的能力;制定支持政策;鼓勵包容、公平的優(yōu)質(zhì)開放式教育資源;促進創(chuàng)建可持續(xù)的開放教育資源模式;促進國際合作,提出應(yīng)著重推進OER的采用。因此,通過全球?qū)嶋H的案例和經(jīng)驗,根據(jù)聯(lián)合國教科文組織的五項目標,本指南討論了在COVID-19暴發(fā)期間OEP和OER的使用。它還討論了OER對OEP的要求。最后,本指南為教師和學習者提供了指導(dǎo)方針,并促進OEP和OER的應(yīng)用。
1.新冠肺炎疫情暴發(fā)下的開放教育實踐應(yīng)用背景
1.1疫情期間開放教育實踐的重要性
在疫情暴發(fā)期間,中國教育部和一些教育專家、大學研究討論了利用信息和通信技術(shù)(ICT)來改革整個教育系統(tǒng),這樣即使課程中斷,也可以提供在線學習和遠程教育。雖然在線學習和遠程教育早已在中國開展,但在這種突發(fā)的危急情況下,中國和世界各地的教育都面臨著挑戰(zhàn):缺乏準備時間;師生時空分離;需要有效的教學方法。
為了克服準備在線學習資源時間有限的問題,教師可利用教育部出版的、其他國家和國際資源庫中提供的數(shù)千種開放教育資源(OER),以及公共的在線工具、平臺和技術(shù)。
1.2對教學的啟示
OEP能為學習者提供獲得良好教育內(nèi)容的機會,因此有助于實現(xiàn)無障礙學習和終身學習。OEP能讓學習者活躍地參與學習過程。OEP還能通過讓學習者參與創(chuàng)建和修訂OER,一步超越主動學習,為后來的學習者的學習做出貢獻。它可以進一步幫助學習者獲得數(shù)字素養(yǎng)(搜索、評估和識別在線資源),這是21世紀學生必備的素養(yǎng)。此外,OEP促進了新教學法的出現(xiàn),根據(jù)觀察,該方法可以創(chuàng)建“一個能相互交流學習、教學、技術(shù)和社會正義等理論,并能得知教育實踐和結(jié)構(gòu)發(fā)展情況的實踐場所”。中國探索了一些創(chuàng)新的教學法,以確保疫情期間高等教育課程質(zhì)量。
由于OEP和OER均可在因疫情暴發(fā)而導(dǎo)致的教育中斷期間促進學習和教學過程,因此一些國際組織,如聯(lián)合國教科文組織(UNESCO)、阿拉伯教科文組織(ALECSO)和英聯(lián)邦學習共同體(COL),都在其官網(wǎng)上共享了高質(zhì)量的OER和工具,供教師和學習者在家庭中使用。此外,阿拉伯教科文組織正在為本地區(qū)教師提供OER培訓(xùn),以幫助他們創(chuàng)建OER并與其他人共享OER,從而保證學習不受干擾。