Open Educational Resources (OER): How Can These Free Resources be Used for ESL Teaching and Learning?

Welcome to our discussion Open Educational Resources (OER): How Can These Free Resources be Used for ESL Teaching and Learning?, Marcela and I are looking forward to connecting with community members this week through discussion, questions and sharing experiences.  Throughout the week we will post and respond to discussion prompts, and we encourage all of you to ask questions and share comments, concerns, and experiences about OER use, specifically with language learners. 

In preparation for this dialogue, we recommended that you visit previous OER discussions and explore the available resources that were shared there. We know that summer is winding down, and classes will begin soon (if they’re not already in session!), and you may not have been able to review the previous discussions.  Below is key background knowledge for your review so you can fully participate this week.  Please note:  this post is long only to provide you will relevant background knowledge!  Most of our future posts will be shorter.

What are OER?

“Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits sharing, accessing, repurposing—including for commercial purposes—and collaborating with others.”

~ Office of Educational Technology, National Educational Technology Plan, page 56

What’s the difference between an open resource and a free resource?

Free is great.  Open is great.  The difference between the two is the legal permissions attached to OER that allow for modification, unlimited sharing, unlimited access, and modification. (Yes! I mention modification twice. J It’s that important.)

Free resources are valuable, and we are not suggesting that you do not use them.  We are encouraging you to learn about, use, and even create OER in addition to the other resources you already use.  Determining if a resource is an OER or not can be tricky if you don’t have much experience doing so.  Understanding the legal terminology can be time consuming and confusing; however, once you know what to look for, it becomes much faster.  The greatest value in resources that are open is that open resources allow users to remix and revise the content legally and then share that revision with the rest of the open community.  This provides the opportunity for users to take a great resource and modify it to match their students’ needs and instructional objectives, as well as add to the supply of instructional materials – for us, it’s adding to the less robust pool of adult focused materials.   

What types of OER are available?

OER can be anything!  There are OER that are full lesson plans, even curriculum, some that are practice activities, others that are games, videos, lectures, and/or assessments. If you can imagine it, it exists as an OER somewhere, and if not, then you can create it and share it as an open resource.

OER and Adult English Language Learners

Through project work sponsored by OCTAE, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) has worked with four teacher User Groups to find, use, and evaluate OER appropriate for adult teaching and learning.  The LINCS ESL Professional project worked with two of the User Groups to create a collection of OER appropriate for use with Adult language learners.  The User Groups have ended, and this conversation is a way to share some resources used by the participants, keep the OER conversation going, and find out the community’s thoughts, concerns, and questions about OER.  The OER STEM project produced a video to help disseminate the work done with OER.  Please take some time to watch the video (approximately 7 min) and hear from adult educators and adult learners talk about the value of OER.  Then post your initial reactions, comments, and questions to begin our discussion – what value do you see as a language teacher in using OER?  Where do you see OER supporting teaching and learning in an English language learning environment?     

Comments

Time is a precious commodity that I always feel that I don't have enough of, and I am are always looking to find ways to save time. I think this is especially relevant right now with the beginning of the school or program year as I'm still trying to get my bearings and figure out how to balance the demands that come with the new year. I know we'll settle into routines soon, but right now, any short cuts are greatly appreciated!

To me, this is one of the greatest benefits of having OER available. Rather than feeling like I have to reinvent the wheel if I choose not to stick to my old lesson plans, I could look at what others have found to work and adapt it to meet my students' needs. And although we're talking about working with ESL students, some of the OER that aren't necessarily tagged for ESL can be adapted, without too much difficulty, so that they are appropriate for and can be used successfully in an ESL classroom.

How else OER can help you make language teachers more efficient and effective?

I participated in one of the OER User Groups this past fall and winter. At the time, I was only teaching writing in a large urban program. One of the issues that I believe to be common to many ABE teachers is lack of specific content knowledge/expertise when it comes to trying to provide our students with direct instruction in areas like reading, math or writing. The courses that I took in order to earn my M.Ed and teaching licensure were all very general and focused on theories of adult development and working with adults in transition. I didn't take a single course that taught me how to teach a person how to read or write or what strategies to use. When I started searching for lessons on OER Commons as part of the User Group, I was drawn towards a number of lessons that were designed to be used with students much younger than my own because they very clearly laid out for me strategies for teaching some of the basic writing skills that my students needed. I remember one lesson that was designed to help students know when to begin a new paragraph. While I would struggle to articulate to my students any such guidelines, this lesson very reasonably suggested starting a new paragraph when the time changed, the place changed, or there was a change in the action. I can only assume that it was developed by a teacher who had received the sort of training in teaching writing that I knew I was missing, and so I was very grateful to find a lesson that gave me these tools.

Another lesson that I used in class was geared towards helping students use sensory language in order to write better descriptive paragraphs. For that lesson I brought in items that students could experience through their five senses, such as an abalone shell, and the students were tasked with describing how the objects looked, smelled, felt, etc. There was a nice table that had been developed to go along with the lesson in which students practiced using adjectives to describe grass, fire, chocolate, and roses. 

There was also a great lesson on using sentence strips to teach transition words. The idea behind the lesson was to allow students to manipulate the sentences and change the meanings by adding various transition words. The hands-on nature of the lesson really helped students to understand how carefully choosing transition words adds meaning to our writing. For all of these lessons, I did make some minor changes in order to make them more appropriate for my adult learners. But since the basic lesson pieces worked for me, I only had to find different reading material or change the look of a table or chart. And what I gained from using the lessons was a confidence that I had been lacking. I felt reassured that the lessons I was teaching were really going to help teach my students those core skills exactly because they had been developed to do just that. By which I mean, they had been developed to help students (children) who were learning those same skills in their own writing classes.

My state (MN) is moving towards more standards-based instruction, as I'm sure many other states are. Another benefit to using lessons from OER Commons is that I found many of them to be aligned to standards such as Common Core. When looking at a particular lesson, it was nice to be able to see exactly which skills it would address. When providing direct instruction in an area like reading, writing or math, this can be very useful.

Hi, Stephanie!

I REALLY like what you wrote here! I think that often teachers are unsure about who to ask or where to go for help when they don't have all the knowledge or skills for something they want to teach, especially if they're at a program in which classes take place at different times or locations. OER make it so that you *don't* have to know everything about everything; there's a good chance that someone else has already wanted to teach something similar (or similar enough) and created (and tested!) a lesson plan - AND figured out what works or doesn't!

They say it takes a village to raise a child. In that same vain, I would argue that it takes a village to make it through the school year. Knowing that OER as part of your village can really build your confidence as a teacher because you know that you can provide instruction that has been shown to work.

Marcela

Marcela and others,

Marcella, you have made an interesting observation, if I understand it correctly, that a teacher can not only benefit from the work of other teachers in making OER but also, in the process of using them, improve her/his knowledge of the content and methods for teaching it. If this is so, then another way to look at OER is not just as free, re-purpose-able content and lesson plans that can save teachers time, but -- dare I say -- also as a form of professional development.

One of my hopes for these LINCS communities of practice is that they will become villages of teachers that help other teachers to improve their craft. I now see a new possible link between the LINCS CoPs and OER. Suppose, for example, that there were micro-groups in some of the CoPs such as Reading and Writing, Math and Numeracy, and Science, in which teachers reviewed, used, and discussed their use of specific OER. Their work could produce reviews of OER that could also be published to the larger audience of that CoP, so everyone could benefit from their work.

As is now the case with web pages, apps, lesson plan databases and other resource databases, there are now a huge number of resources! How can an individual sort through them to chose the best for her/his class? Perhaps a group devoted to reviewing OER, separating the wheat from the chaff, and explaining ways to use a particular OER would help.

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

 


 

Hello Stephanie, Marcela, David and all, I have long believed in the possibility that well designed instructional materials can support teachers to learn some of the basics of how to teach effectively. Thank you, Stephanie, for sharing how you have enhanced your teaching of writing by drawing upon well designed OER materials.

I want to pose a question to our facilitators as well as our members -- a question that is implicit in David's suggestion. How do we judge the quality of OER materials -- especially if we have not been trained in how to teach reading, writing and math? Have these materials previously been vetted in any way by K12 teachers? (I assume the majority of OER materials were developed by K12 teachers, but perhaps my assumption is wrong.) 

David suggests that adult educators may want to get involved in evaluating the OER materials for their usefulness in adult education classrooms. I think this is a great idea, and it would be fantastic professional development for us to be involved in the process.

What has been your experience with OER? Please share examples of the OER materials you have found most useful. It would be great if members would share links to those OER resources. (Stephanie, might you be willing to share links to the OER materials you adapted?)

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP

I just went of OER Commons and found this link http://www.oercommons.org/courses/writing-activities/view

The activities are for k-12, but can easily be modified for adult ESL students.  For instance, I downloaded a graphic organizer for a simple letter/email, something that I do with my students each cycle.  There are also sample letters, with and without mistakes.  I find these to be greatly helpful.  As one of the other participants said, OER's save teachers time.  I will be sharing this site with the other teachers in our organization at our teacher retreat in a week.  I think there is something here for each level.

Now, to look for ways to get students engaged in speaking!

Hello Amanda,

I know that OER Commons -- at least a year or so ago, and at least in the science resources area -- had a category for adult education. Does it have an adult education category for all the areas now? If not, for which ones? What steps do you recommend for people who want to find that category?

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

David, I attended a webinar on OER commons this spring and there was an Adult Ed category, but I was quite perplexed what that means. I think I still have much confusion after searching for "adult ed" learning materials. I think my confusion comes from the the presence of two classifications in the educational worlds.

There is one line of organization that centers completely on grade levels. In that model, Adult Ed is added in, but has little meaning as we all know that we can be working with adults that are educationally all over the grade level spectrum. Sorting by grade levels or categorizing by grade levels is such a poor way of organization for many reasons. If you survey any specific grade level, you will find a wide variance of ability and understanding within any given class because the participants are shuffled forward by social promotion in most cases rather than academic ability. It almost takes and act of congress in some districts to get a student held back a year for remediation that is often much needed. The second knock on the grade level organization is that the content of these levels are often dictated by textbook companies that have no incentive at all in studying the research of how people learn, when they learn it, or how they learn it. Companies simply need to watch their competitors actions to appropriately keep their market share up and keep the flow of new covers coming on their texts that only modify a small percent of its content each edition based on market research, not educational research.  

The other organization model is the standards. In the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) grade levels are also used, but the standards acknowledge that wide variances and experiences can happen within age groups. Our College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS) is a subset of the CCSS with one of the major differences being that the Adult Ed standards have fewer standards that are primary concentrations. Instead of 12 annual grade levels CCRS groups by non proportional 5 chunks of time A through E with E being the typical high school 4 year chunk. In this system of organizing materials I can see rational for having an Adult Ed category only in that it might help day school people realize that some of their standards (CCSS) are not being addressed. I still don't see how identifying any of the CCRS Adult Ed standards as a distinct category, "Adult Ed" would help anyone find a learning resource that met a standard a teacher might be looking for. 

One does not need to poke around the Internet long to find that the Grade Level organization is still the primary focus after 11 years of CCSS "preparation" (and people wonder why education organization is considered slothful and unable to change?). In those few resources that do categorize by CCSS or CCRS the focus is on the number or category of the standards being addressed. In neither of these organizational structures do I see a rational for labeling something "Adult Ed" in order to facilitate our educators being able to find materials to help them meet the needs of their learners. 

It as been mentioned in a few other LINCS threads (still trying to figure out how to find those again) that there is a huge need to be able to index all the wonderful tools out there to the standards. I feel developing this concept further really helps the field maintain focus on standards-based instruction and helps wean us away from those ambiguous grade level demarcations. I propose that if the OER commons put heavy emphasis on accurately being able to index to standards (both of the CCSS and CCRS) rather than the grade level categorization, the repository would become more popular and more efficacious to the field. Do we have a discussion thread location set up for indexing ideas? I have two possible systems that might really help us and I am unsure where to offer those up for discussion on indexing resources to the CCRS. Meanwhile, I would love to hear examples of how people might benefit from any learning materials with an "Adult Ed" category. Perhaps it could be useful at very low levels to indicate early learning that is contextualized for adult rather than toddlers? Sadly, some of the early learning items I have found with Adult Ed tags still are geared towards toddlers, so I have not personally seen that distinction in my poking around. 

Hi Ed, You bring up some worthwhile discussion topics about ways to organize resources to make them more accessible and user friendly. You wrote, "I have two possible systems that might really help us and I am unsure where to offer those up for discussion on indexing resources to the CCRS." Perhaps sharing these ideas in the College and Career Readiness Community of Practice would be the most relevant venue for this ongoing discussion.

What do others think?

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL, Assessment & College and Career Readiness CoPs

 

Hi David,

Yes!  We created an OER Commons group for saving adult education specific OER.  It's called "Adult Education Open Community of Resources" and as of this morning, there are 189 resources saved to that group.  Within the group we created subfolders:  Adult ESL, Math, Science, Workforce Prep, Digital Literacy and Teacher Professional Development are some examples of these folders.  Because it is a public group anyone can join and create different folders.  

There are a couple of ways to find this group.  1) follow the link above or 2) create an OER Commons account (it's free and you do not get emails or updates from them!)  Once you create an account, click "connect" then "groups" and a list of all OER Commons groups will appear.  Many are public, and it's easy to join - again, no email updates, but plenty of easy access to both free and open resources.  Another benefit to this feature on OER Commons is that anyone can create their own group.  If an adult ed program wants one place to store OER, they can create a group and make it public or private - if the group is private, users must request to join, but if it's public it's just a matter of clicking "join" for access to the saved resources.  This means that not only teachers have easy access to materials, but students as well!

I encourage everyone to browse the Adult Ed group.  What other subgroups would be valuable?  How do you envision yourself/your program/your students using this group?

Amanda

Thanks for directing us to the OER Commons Adult Ed Group, Amanda. As you note, there are 189 OER resources currently available which have been tagged specifically for adult ESL. The instructional materials indicate which level the resource was designed for, which is very helpful. It's also true that many K12 OER resources housed at the OER Commons site could be readily adapted for use in adult ESL, although-- of course-- we may need to make some adaptations.

I'm wondering if you, Amanda and Marcela, can share with us about how you worked with your teams of adult education practitioners to evaluate resources for addition to the adult ed section of the OER site? It would be great to hear more from the practitioners who were involved in this process, too. It looks like anyone can add resources to the OER site at any time, but I might be wrong about that. Could you elaborate on the process of adding resources?

Thanks for sharing your experiences and your insights with us here!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP

I was one of the fortunate members of the group to participate in the review and evaluation of OER for adult ESL students this past semester. First, I want to emphasize how much I learned from Amanda, Marcela, and the rest of the project's team. The webinars that they provided really set us up to understand how to search for materials and use the rubrics to evaluate. I had perused the OER Commons prior to working with the team, but hadn't really done very much with the resources. However, once I became familiar with the search criteria and the evaluation rubrics, I found that searching and evaluating went very smoothly. Part of the focus of our project was to use the resources with our adult ed ESL students prior to evaluating them, and that certainly informed my evaluations. I agree with someone who mentioned that comments are especially helpful when reviewing the evaluations.Although I could and did often search adult ed material specifically, I didn't limit myself to only adult ed or only ESL materials.

I was so excited about the possibilities of OER Commons that I recently gave a short presentation about it at a local college's conference on teaching and learning. Participants came from many different subject areas (health professions, business, literacy, social sciences and humanities). Not surprisingly, the health and literacy topics provided the richest results. However, by widening their searches, pretty much everybody found some resources of use to them. I think that spreading the word about the OER Commons and its advantages of being able to adapt many of the materials, and encouraging colleagues to evaluate what they are finding and using, is an important way to add to the number, variety, and quality of the resources.

Best,

Dorothy Taylor

SUNY/University at Buffalo 

Thank you, Dorothy, for sharing your experiences with OER.  A major (if not the main) philosophy behind the open education movement is that education is sharing - you, and others from the group, have really embraced this and have reached out to others, sharing what you've learned and the benefits of OER with them.  It's people like you and  others from the group who can keep this moving!  I love that you commented that "everybody found some resources of use to them".  This speaks volumes to the sheer mass of OER available.  AND, if they don't find anything, they can create their own OER, add an open license to it, and share it on OER Commons just like many of the User Group members did.

Thanks, again, Dorothy!

Amanda 

Thank you, Dorothy, for sharing your experiences with OER.  A major (if not the main) philosophy behind the open education movement is that education is sharing - you, and others from the group, have really embraced this and have reached out to others, sharing what you've learned and the benefits of OER with them.  It's people like you and  others from the group who can keep this moving!  I love that you commented that "everybody found some resources of use to them".  This speaks volumes to the sheer mass of OER available.  AND, if they don't find anything, they can create their own OER, add an open license to it, and share it on OER Commons just like many of the User Group members did.

Thanks, again, Dorothy!

Amanda 

Hi Susan and all,

First, I want to say "thank you"  to all who have posted, shared experiences and asked questions.  It's clear that the level of understanding around OER has greatly increased in the adult ed community over the last 3 years!

Susan - once we finalized who would be participating as teacher User Group members we held a webinar to make sure that everyone was defining OER in the same way.  Then, we held another webinar where we reviewed the evaluation process in detail so everyone knew how to use the rubrics.  You're right - anyone can add a resource to OER Commons and we shared resources with the User Group members so they would know how to do it and so it was clear that we were not limiting their evaluations to resources already on OER Commons.  Since OER Commons is a repository, there are OER saved there from a variety of sources, but it is certainly not the end all be all of what's available.  I'll elaborate on how to contribute outside resources to the repository, but if anyone wants to try it out or is more visual, click here to go directly to OER Commons.  Once you click "contribute" or "submit" (they use both terms) a form will appear.  You will be required to enter information about the OER you wish to add.  This information includes:  title, author, link, type of material, grade level (scroll all the way down for adult ed) and the license.  These are the main requirements.  Once you do this, the resource goes to the OER COmmons digital librarian who will make sure that it's legal to actually share the require and he/she will check to ensure the license is accurate.  The process is straightforward and not very time consuming.  

For those of you who have contributed to OER Commons, please share your thoughts and experiences. 

Best,

Amanda

I also wanted to mention that in addition to the webinars, we also had a private LINCS page where all User Group members could share resources, their experiences (both positive and frustrating) and ask questions such as is this an OER?  I can't find the license for an OER I want to use.  Can someone help?

David mentioned in his comment the potential benefits of a LINCS page dedicated to discussing OER.  I don't want to speak for all of the User Group members, but I am confident that most of them really benefited from having this community, sharing with each other, and learning from each other.  Patricia also commented that it was mostly in the discussion around the resources that her practice transformed.  I see great potential around a page dedicated to discussing OER, especially the permissions for and act of modifying them.  Classes are often (always?!) multi-level.  Having a space to talk about how one resource can be scaffolded so it appropriately challenges each level in the classroom seems like powerful tool to me.  Definitely food for thought....what do others think?  IF there was a page like David mentioned, how would you like to see it used?

Amanda

Susan brings up a great point - how do we determine the quality of OER?  Since OER can be created and shared by anyone, how do we differentiate between high-quality OER and poor quality OER?  In May, the OER STEM team facilitated another LINCS discussion that focused on this topic.  You can find and review that discussion here.  Below is a brief summary of the evaluation process and links to two evaluated OER for you to examine. In a previous post, I mentioned the comments feature - this feature can expand on the rubrics and provide additional information on the use, purpose and quality of each resource.  

Users can evaluate OER on OER Commons using the Achieve Rubrics.  These are rubrics designed to specifically evaluate OER.  There are a total of 7 rubrics to evaluate:

  • Rubric I. Degree of Alignment to Standards (CCSS)
  • Rubric II. Quality of Explanation of the Subject Matter
  • Rubric III. Utility of Materials Designed to Support Teaching
  • Rubric IV. Quality of Assessment
  • Rubric V. Quality of Technological Interactivity
  • Rubric VI. Quality of Instructional Tasks and Practice Exercises
  • Rubric VII. Opportunities for Deeper Learning

Anyone can complete an evaluation and the results are averaged for each rubric - this has been a topic of debate as well.  Potential users can analyze these results and determine if they will use the resource or not. Take a look at the evaluation results for two OER of your choice or the ones below.  What do you notice?  What does the information tell you?  How can these results inform your language instruction?  If there is something that you consider missing from the rubrics and want to know, what is it? 

  1. https://www.oercommons.org/courses/new-england-writings-about-civics
  2. https://www.oercommons.org/courses/restorative-classroom-practices

These are all great questions and comments!  Thank you all for contributing.  

Amanda

Hi Amanda, Marcela, and all, Like many members here, I've been visiting the OER site and checking out some of the resources and materials. I must say the range of resources is pretty incredible -- from video lectures (which you highlighted earlier) by experts on second language acquisition such as Stephen Krashen and Diane Larson-Freeman to hands-on lesson materials to teach grammar and vocabulary to online games, quizzes and exercises to the Connect with English "soap opera" style video series with accompanying lesson plans and student activities ---and much more!

Thanks for sharing the evaluation procedure and how anyone can participate in that process. The open evaluation process is somewhat similar to writing a review of one's experience at a vacation rental or a purchase on Amazon.

I clicked on the link to the Restorative Classroom Practices OER resource that you linked us to above, and I have a question. The Achieve Rubric for this resource seems to indicate that only one person so far has reviewed the resource. Am I reading this right? Most of the resources I've checked out seem to indicate the same. I don't know if I saw anything with more than one or two reviewers. I assume this is due to most of the resources being newly added or that people are only now becoming aware of them. The field could surely benefit by having more practitioners examining, using and reviewing these materials.

Thanks again for raising our awareness of the many possibilities OERs present to us!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP

 

 

 

Hi Susan and all,

Yes!  I'm glad you've been able to browse the site and discover the wealth of open resources available!  You bring up a good point, Susan.  Many resources have limited evaluations - some just one, others two or three.  This isn't always the case, but it is the rule, rather than the exception.  We discussed this issue quite a bit during our previous LINCS discussion.  I can't say for sure if this is because a resources or new or if it's some other reason. In the previous discussion there were multiple mentions of time being an issue and that while users do evaluate internally, they may not do it in the public forum.  

I agree that having a lot of evaluations (and the comments that can go with them) would be really beneficial to the field. For those of you who have searched, found and used OER from OER Commons, did you evaluate each?  why or why not?  

Amanda

I was very fortunate to participate in the review and evaluation of OER for adult ESL students this past fall and winter. What I love the most about using OER  is that you have a large variety of great resources. As some other participants mentioned, not all OER have been evaluated, so when I added a new OER to the site, I evaluated most of them on the criteria or standards that I thought were relevant to me and my students. Although most creative common license allows you to make changes to the resources, I was able to find resources, or rather, lessons, that required very little changes. One of my favorite resources was a lesson on setting goals https://www.oercommons.org/courses/you-got-to-have-a-dream  The lesson starts with a Russian advertising video for shampoo. The video is actually really inspiring as it is about a girl who succeeds against all odds.

Finally, many thanks to Amanda, Marcela and the other participants in my cohort. It was a great and inspiring leaning adventure.

Hi Paula, Thanks for sharing the link to this lesson. I can imagine that the video, You've got to have a dream, would be a good one to start a discussion of goal setting at the beginning of a new class. I like that the video has no audio, but rather communicates completely in the images.

Could you tell us a bit about the goal setting setting lesson you did with your students?

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP

In all honesty, when I was part of the OER user group cohort I did not find the Achieve Rubric adequate for evaluating OERs that I use in my Adult ESOL classes and that is why I explained exactly how I used the resource in the comments.  I do think the evaluation of the resources needs to be changed.  Because of that, I think an OER community on LINCS is an excellent idea.  We could share resources, discuss ways to improve how we label the resources so that they are easier to find, identify a more useful set of criteria to use to evaluate the OERs and encourage each other to publish our own OERs as we have colleagues with great lessons (even entire units) that could be shared.  

Leann

Hi Leann,

Thanks for your honest comment about the Achieve Rubrics.  I wonder if you can say more about why you felt the rubrics were not adequate for evaluating OER as well as what would need to be included in the rubrics for them to be adequate?  I'm so glad that you shared your use of the comment section on OER Commons.  These have great potential for informing future users' choices of resources. 

Amanda

Hi Leann -- and others,

There is a LINCS micro-group in which adult education teachers of science have evaluated science instruction videos, and have used the Achieve Rubric. Our group didn't find the Achieve Rubric comprehensive enough for our purposes so we incorporated it into a more elaborate, adult basic and secondary education-focused science instructional video evaluation form. See below for a version of the form that has had much of the blank space removed to make it more readable here.

I would like to see many LINCS micro-groups evaluating: lesson plans, resources (including instructional videos, of course), and online tools. I see these as moderator-led, volunteer online work groups, where teachers (and perhaps other practitioners) sign up with the understanding that there is "No lurking, only working", of course including reflection and discussion, and that evaluations will be produced that will be of benefit to themselves and their micro-group, but also to many members of the CoP of which they are a part.

Here's the video evaluation form:

=========================

Science Video Evaluation Form

Video Title:

Video Series:

Web address of video:  http://

Length of Video in minutes:

Reviewer’s first and last name:

Date reviewed:

1. Overall suitability for Adult Basic Skills Learners (Rate 0 to 3):

2. Level (ABE, ASE, or Transition to Higher Ed):

3. Accuracy and Quality of Content (Rate 0 to 3):

4. Engagement (Rate 0 to 3. 0 = not engaging. 3 = highly engaging):

5. Briefly describe the video:

6. Achieve  Rubrics for Evaluating Open Education Resource (OER) Objects[1]

Rubric

Rubric Title

Rating

 (0 to 3)

or N/A

I

Degree of alignment to standards

 

II

Quality of Explanation of the Subject Matter

 

III

Utility of Materials Designed to Support Teaching

 

IV

Quality of Assessments

 

V

Quality of Technological Interactivity

 

VI

Quality of Instructional Practice Exercises

 

VII

Opportunities for Deeper Learning

 

VIII

Assurance of Accessibility Standards

 

 

Other Comments:

For example:  if you recommend this for some kinds of students but not others, please explain for whom and why. If there is a particular way that you think this video could best be used, explain what it is and why this would be useful. If you have a comment about how you answered certain questions, indicate the question number and then explain.

 

[1] The table used in this form for evaluating science videos is based upon the Achieve Rubrics, Version 4: November 18, 2011 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

 

David J. Rosen

Moderator, Technology and Learning CoP

djrosen123@gmail.com

 

Hi Amanda -- and others,

You can download the list of science instruction videos (all free, but not necessarily all OER) from: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6715575/Science%20Instruction%20Videos%20for%20Adult%20Learners%208.11.14.docx

You can download reviews of a few of these videos from: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6715575/Science%20Video%20Reviews%208.17.14.docx

All the best,

David

djrosen123@gmail.com

 

 

Hi Leann, Thank you for sharing about your experience evaluating OERs as they relate specifically to your ESL teaching context. Could you say more about what you would like to see in a rubric to make it more relevant to yourself and other ESL teachers? How would you suggest adapting the rubric? Are there categories you'd, perhaps, like to see added?

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP

David,

I really like your suggestion that OER serve as a form of  professional development.  I participated in a group reviewing OER this spring, and found the experience very helpful, in fact, transformative.  As you say, one finds new, free materials to present in the classroom.  However, it is the exchange of ideas that provides a long-term benefit.  This exchange provides an insight into how another person approaches the same material you have taught in your own way for some time.  This look at another teacher's thinking continues to influence you, months after you have used their materials. 

Hi David and all,

OER come in a variety of forms, including professional development.  This PD can come explicitly  - here are a couple of examples: TESOL lectures and Teaching Pragmatics or it can be through studying others' lessons as Patricia, Stephanie and Marcela mentioned. I think your idea of going beyond sharing OER to discussing specific ones here on LINCS is a great idea - because the legal permissions of OER allow for modification, teachers can discuss different ways to improve the resource and once it's improved, share that modified version on OER Commons so everyone has access to the new and improved resource.  Users can share resources from an outside source so they are saved on OER Commons by "submitting a resource".  

OER Commons also has a feature that allows users to post comments when evaluating a resource.  The comments can be shared about the OER in general or specific to each rubric (I'm going to reply to Susan's comment in more detail about evaluation).  For an example of what the comments look like and the information that may be shared, see "Be the Sentence: An Interactive Language Arts Activity".  These comments have great potential to support users in deciding if the OER is appropriate for their classroom needs and, as David puts it, separating the wheat from the chaff, and explaining ways to use a particular OER would help. 

The open education movement is very popular and there are many high-quality courses that teachers/PD providers/program administrators can participate in.  Because these courses are open they are also free and the materials shared within them are often open as well which means that participants can take that material and share or repurpose them for other PD opportunities in their communities in a more tailored way.  You can find these courses by searching the web for "open courses for X" (insert teaching strategies, language learning, ect).  Teaching with Technology and Inquiry: An Open Course for Teachers is just one example.  These courses are offered by universities around the world and provide not only an opportunity for learning from experts but also for connecting with others!  What do you want to learn about?  I encourage everyone to complete a search for an open professional development opportunity and share the course(s) that you find here.

Amanda

 

Hi, Stehanie!

I teach ESL to intermediate level students (adults).  Your description of the activities sounds great and I would like to include them in my classes.  Is there any chance that you have the name or link to the OER you are speaking about?

Thanks!

Hi Linda,

I believe these are the resources Stephanie mentioned  

1.  Paragraph writing

2.  Using Sensory Adjectives to Write Descriptive Paragraphs

To find any resource you can go to OER Commons and use the search feature, too.  As part of the LINCS ESL Pro teacher user group process, teachers were asked to 'tag' all evaluated resources with "Adult ESL".  If you put this phrase in the search feature, you will find Stephanie's resources and all of the others.  This would give you multiple options to choose from for use in your class. Marcela also made a great point when she mentioned that even if a resource isn't tagged Adult ESL, because the resources are open, you have the option of modifying them so they are appropriate for your learners and then you can share your modification and tag it, contributing to this growing body of adult specific teaching and learning materials. 

I'm so glad to read that you are ready to explore these resources and share them with your coworkers!  I hope you keep us all updated on how you and your program uses OER.

Amanda 

Hi Linda,

Amanda already shared links to 2 of the OERs that I mentioned in my post (thanks, Amanda!), and here is the third one about using transition words: https://www.oercommons.org/authoring/6786-using-sentence-strips-to-practice-transition-words

I found many great OERs have been developed by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education. They were the original contributors of the using sensory language lesson and this using transitions lesson.

Best,

Stephanie

Thank you Stephanie and Amanda!  I so appreciate your assistance in getting the links.  I will check them out soon.  Also, thank for the heads up on Chapel Hill.  Good to know where to head when searching.

Take care, Linda

I teach at a non-profit in which the students make weekly requests of what they wish to learn.  As you can imagine, the teacher ends up being an expert juggler of topics!  In one week, the requests can vary from "practice past tense" to "learn about saving the planet."  When developing activities, I have often ended up searching the web for information on topics I know little about (for instance, car engines.)  One way I see OER's helping me is by providing me with information of various topics from which I can take vocabulary, text, and information to incorporate into my activities.

 

I'm posting this for a former User Group member who was having some difficulty with LINCS:

I bookmark Creative Commons search and OER Commons.  I use these sites as well as available search engines (yahoo, google).  I always lead with ESL as the first term in my search.  Then I will put in the relevant topic (nutrition, modals).  I have found that most of the results are applicable to adult education.  If a site or lesson is aimed at k-12, it can often be adapted. keeping in mind to look at the very bottom of the page to check copyright use.  

And, as a further resource I have my name on many email lists (LINCS, Tech Tips, OTAN, etc.)  It is a matter of having several resources (emphasis on the plural) so far as being able to access what is available.  Of course, I make use of sites and materials that retain complete copyright use.  With all these resources on hand I can usually address whatever may come up sooner rather than later.

Thanks for keeping OERs in view.

Hi everyone,

I'm so sorry to have missed out on this rich discussion on using OERs in the ESL classroom. I was in the last group of participants and we had an opportunity to evaluate OERs. I was also able to create 2 lessons that I submitted in OER Commons, thanks to the training I received with LINCS ESL!

I teach a computer lab, and I particularly found it difficult to locate computer related materials for an ESL population. I love using videos, but find them too long and complicated for the average ESL student in my class. But I wanted to share that I just learned of a great tool called Zaption  which turns videos into interactive experiences so teachers can create pauses in videos like in you-tube and add discussion questions to check for understanding. I know this is side-tracking from the discussion, but tools such as these can help teachers who find content that may not be designed for Adult ESL learners and adapt it to our population. Check it out!

I also wanted to say that OERs really encourage sharing and feedback from users. In this way, quality materials can be created.

Sorry to be brief this time, but I plan to review the discussion!

Sharon Ram

Hi, all,

I've copied and pasted a short conversation thread that was started in response to this special discussion.  I wanted to share it here just in case others' didn't see it.  What are your thoughts?

Amanda

FROM ORLY:

Good afternoon everyone,

The semester started this week, and I'm teaching a new class this year. So I'm still trying to learn before I teach. Not that it's an excuse, but it's a good reason why I haven't taken the time to get back to OER commons.

I too was fortunate to participate in one of the cohorts. I find that adult educators love to share their way of teaching, and appreciate getting feedback. I see OER Commons as a wonderful platform to find last minute lessons/videos/games, that an instructor may use in class. I also heard from students that they appreciated being able to practice some of the activities we used in class, later at home.

Amanda and Marcela, Thanks for helping us keep up with OER Commons.

Orly

Tags:  adult ESL ABE  

Comments

Amanda123

OER supports Instructors and enables students

Hi Orly and others!

You bring up a great point that was mentioned in the OER video link I shared to start this discussion - students appreciate being able to practice some classroom activities at home. Of course, this is possible without OER, but it is easier to do with linked resources that are easily accessible by all.  After reading your post, I thought about how students could become more involved.  Since everyone is able to evaluate OER on OER Commons, what do you think about students providing their own evaluation and/or comments about the resource?  I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts about this. 

Amanda

top | bottom

Leann

August 31, 2015 - 12:53pm

 

NEW

student satisfaction and evaluation

Hi Amanda, Orly and others!

I like the idea of getting student evaluations. Students need to be more reflective of their own learning anyway, so this would be a good way to do it.  They may even offer suggestions on how to remix it for future use or expand  on it.   I got a lot of positive feedback from my students when I used the OERs that I evaluated and published as part of the OER User Group Cohort, but it was mostly just verbal feedback after the class sessions.

  While it can be challenging and time-consuming to find OERs to use in class, student satisfaction was a great motivator for me. I agree with Orly that students like having online materials that they can access outside of class when they have time and in order to get more practice on a topic covered in class, OERs are great resources for that too.  As I learn  Spanish, I'm constantly scouring the internet for such resources!  

Building up repositories of quality materials for for ESOL learners of all levels is so important.  It can save time when we find something that we just need to tweak to meet our students' needs and I found it sparked my own creativity to remix or create something based on ideas that I found.  

Hello everyone!

Thank you all for your thoughtful participation this week.  Many of you shared your classroom experiences that incorporated OER and I think that's most helpful for those unfamiliar with OER.  Some of you have created OER using Open Author, others have modified existing OER, and some used as is.  This is a wonderful illustration of the varied implementation practices for OER.  In this discussion, as well as others on LINCS, we discussed evaluating OER and, more specifically, what is the best tool for adult educators should use to maximize the benefits of the evaluations.  I encourage everyone to continue debating this and thinking about what would serve your instructional and planning needs in the most efficient and effective way. Although our conversation technically ends today, I will continue to check the thread and respond to any questions that remain.  Hopefully, you will do the same and talk with others in the group about the value OER might bring to teaching and learning.  There are a few topics that we didn't discuss directly, but may be of interest you.  They are:  

  • how to use OER to differentiate instruction
  • how OER can enhance distance learning/blended models
  • how OER can support the teaching of reading, writing, speaking and listening
  • how OER can support college and career readiness
  • Others??

Also, I'm curious to know if any states have OER policy.  If so, please share what that policy is and how states are communicating about OER with teachers and programs.  

Amanda

Below is a short list of OER outside of OER Commons.  As you explore some of these resources, it's important to keep in mind that because of the license permissions attached to them, they can be modified!

College and Career Readiness:

All Subjects 

Adult Education Computer Curriculum

Digital Literacy

Open Textbooks and Courses

Finally, here are two videos about open education and OER.  

 

A huge thank you to Amanda Duffy and Marcela Movit for guiding our discussion this past week on the enormous potential of using OER in adult ESL classrooms. I was personally pleased to have the opportunity and encouragement to revisit the OER site and spend more time than I had previously. It's truly amazing how much is available.

Thank you, as well, to our members who shared their experience in reviewing OER as part of AIR's project. We all appreciate hearing what the process was like for you. It's especially helpful to learn from teachers about specific OER tools that work well in the classrooms.

The guest-led discussion has come to end, but I know we will continue to explore the OER site for useful resources and I hope many of us will also contribute our own lesson plans and materials. The old adage 'why reinvent the wheel?' is surely relevant when we consider the possibilities with OER!

We can keep this thread going for as long as members like. Please feel free to continue sharing your questions and suggestions for ESL-appropriate OER as well as your good ideas here!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP