OpenEd20

Graduate students are oddly placed in the Academy, wearing multiple hats that range from learner, to teaching assistant, to full-on instructor.  Yet, graduate students appear to be missing from—and missing out on—discussions around Open Education. 

Graduate students seem perfectly positioned to shift the perspective on OpenEd from niche to default. Graduate students are at once the trainees and the trainers, receiving instruction and providing it to multiple audiences.  Graduate students often create content for folks beyond the classroom too, through the likes of grant reports, policy briefs, public scholarship, and peer-to-peer resources.  In a way, graduate students are the mediators in the educational world who are looking towards next steps in their careers.

The possibilities of involving graduate students appear to be mutually beneficial:  stakeholders in OpenEd can broaden their impact by engaging with graduate students early on in their professionalization, while graduate students can gain exposure and proficiency in skills as they go on to different professions within the education sector.  As a graduate student and a newcomer to Open Education, this possibility makes me feel both incredibly hopeful and like it’s too good to be true.

My presentation is divided into three sections, loosely structured by the following questions.
(Q1) How are graduate students currently positioned to get involved with/in OpenEd?
(Q2) What initiatives can better integrate OpenEd and graduate student communities?
(Q3) What other opportunities and resources might come from graduate student involvement with/in OpenEd?
With a nod to speculating brighter futures, I invite attendees to imagine an educational world where folks were trained Open Education leaders earlier on in their professionalization.

Learning Outcomes:
(1) To reflect on the current role of graduate students in OpenEd. As someone new to Open Education, I propose three points of intervention.
(2) To hypothesize that actively engaging with grad students could increase the possibility of shifting OpenEd principles from niche to default. I propose two potential initiatives.
(3) To ideate ways of increasing graduate student involvement in creating, sharing, and applying Open Pedagogy principles. I am eager for community feedback.