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Open Pedagogy and Active Learning

This guide is presented by the Affordable Educational Resources Committee and is designed to inspire faculty to explore and adopt open pedagogy practices.

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Open Pedagogy Defined

Unlike Open Educational Resources Open Pedagogy cannot be neatly defined. It is both using resources with open licensing in teaching practices but also allowing students, with the use of these licenses, to in turn contribute and share their own knowledge and work with the world. We can think about Open Pedagogy as an access-oriented commitment to learner-driven education and as a process of designing architectures and using tools for learning that enable students to shape the public knowledge commons of which they are a part.

Active Learning Defined

Active learning is "a method of learning in which students are actively or experientially involved in the learning process and where there are different levels of active learning, depending on student involvement." (Bonwell & Eison, 1991).

Examples of Open Pedagogy and Active Learning:


Bonwell, C.; Eison, J. (1991). Active learning: Creating excitement in the classroom. Jossey-Bass.