Student-Centered Course Design & Facilitation
When it comes to course design and delivery, there are many strategies to centering DEI. In the storytelling section, we mentioned the idea of getting to know your audience through storytelling. The act of storytelling can be a great pedagogical tool to build relationships and trust with your class, and show care. While there is no “one size fits all” approach to teaching nor learning, being student-centered and flexible is one of the best tools to keep in your toolbox!
Student-centered design can be broken down into two distinct categories: content and processes. Content refers to the materials and resources you use in the classroom — are the materials and resources diverse and allow for flexible learning opportunities? Processes asks you to consider the best types of activities to allow for diverse learners to understand the content – this could be large-group or solo activities – are you encouraging and supporting students to demonstrate their understanding of content in a variety of ways on tests, projects, and/or assignments?
Consider co-designing class expectations, syllabi, texts, and assignments with your students to increase engagement and active learning. Co-designing learning experiences provides students with agency in what they learn and how they demonstrate their learning. It also removes assumptions about students since you’ll be designing with them, not for them. Open licensing can be a great way to keep syllabi, texts, and assignments up to date and reflect the students in your classes.
“OER loses its power as a community driven effort if we only focus on the goal of making all knowledge accessible, in-spite of community desires.”If you plan on using open licensing, be sure that students fully understand open licensing prior, so they can make informed decisions about what it means to license their work. Students need to know the differences between licenses and consider which license works best for them. It’s important to note that very permissive open licenses may not work for all content, contexts, or creators. When it comes to open licenses, many in the open education community do not feel that the CC-BY-ND (no derivatives) is actually considered open, but this sentiment fails to consider that not all knowledge can or should be accessed completely open. Britt Dzioba (2021) explains that “OER loses its power as a community driven effort if we only focus on the goal of making all knowledge accessible, in-spite of community desires.” Learn the protocol for knowledge sharing when it comes from outside your culture. Allow the holder of this knowledge to self-determine their license. Check out our Office Hours episode on Talking to Students about Open Licenses and the Licensing chapter of A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students for more information.
There are multiple benefits to co-creating materials with students. Aside from relationship building, collaborating with students put