Dreamweaving Open Educational Practices

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The Open University of Sri Lanka Even when we managed all the above four issues and prepared material, we always had to face technical issues in the form of electricity breakdowns, equipment failure, un-supportive software formats, downloading issues…etc., and thus we realized that pre-planning of the lesson is a must. Then came the social issues. Many senior teachers did not respond well with the new concept of OER due to fear to change, and some even harshly commented that it was a waste of time. When this attitude was passed to students and parents most of us had to face questions raised regarding completing the required competency levels within the given time in the current exam-centered learning environment in schools. So much of effort was needed to explain the concept and prove its advantages to them. Even though we had spread the news about the OER concept among our colleagues in the school, it was clearly seen that only individuals with some technical background like Science, Mathematics, English teachers came forward to try out the concept while people who teach traditional subjects like Sinhala, Art, Music, Life Skills…etc just ignored it. This was one of the major issues in passing the concept to students through teachers. Good practices Following are some good practices that we identified: • The OER concept had given teachers a suitable platform to share knowledge with their community as well as with the world. By this it has also formed the good habit of sharing materials with others which will improve the quality of teaching in the entire school system. • OER supports to build prototypes of certain topics which will benefit in teaching as well as learning. • Its helps to improve the quality of teaching – learning process providing the best outcome to the students. • OER practitioners always tend to search for new ideas which will update their knowledge frequently. • It has also improved the teacher-teacher; teacher-student and student-student inter- relationships in many ways. • We could plan good projects for the Annual School Plan which will be beneficial to the whole school system. Impacts on the teaching-learning process Initially it was all about creating and using quality updated lesson materials than before. Practitioners could prepare them in lesser time, remix, and redistribute them. 221
Dreamweaving Open Educational Practices We could use them over and over again with less effort. It also benefitted personally by forming the habit of pre-planning everything. Then it also improved our professionalism. By pre-planning and with the updated materials and knowledge we could face the students with more confidence. Many teachers received good comments and feedback about their teaching skills from students, supervisors as well as observers. By now most of them always expect the best from us, and this experience helped us to improve our personality as a teacher and a researcher among the community. At the classroom we could observe an increased interest and motivation towards the lessons we taught. Students were enthusiastic to experience the lesson rather than just sitting, observing and writing notes, because OER made us capable of using many different active teaching-learning methods and techniques in the classroom. We could also maintain the student motivation, attention and increase their participation to a higher level. Another benefit was that with such OER-integrated lessons, we could reach all types of learners with less effort, increasing the productivity of the learning process. We could expect good ranks in the National level examinations from our students. One of our members was fortunate to have taught students who ranked as island first in 2015 Advanced level examination providing good evidence for this. Achievements and successes By practicing using OER we could achieve a lot, such as: In the class room; • Reduce the time in creating lesson materials. Because I could manage the time well with presentations and videos and reach every type of learner. • Always come up with quality updated lesson materials and knowledge. We could create quality materials to some extent but updated knowledge is always needed. By studying OER we could gather new knowledge needed. • Increased confidence and professionalism as teachers by pre preparation • Increased student motivation towards learning process • Increased productivity in teaching because we could deliver our work accurately and efficiently. • Higher student attention and participation throughout the lessons • Provide many ways to experience the lessons through simulators, animated interactive lessons 222
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The Open University of Sri Lanka Ac
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Dreamweaving Open Educational Practices

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