About This Document

This document was developed with input from leaders across states, districts, and organizations seeking to advance their collective learning on the use and impact of Open Education for K12 teaching and learning. The document is intended to serve as a plan of collaborative action for current and future stakeholders—including administrators, teachers, students, and the broader community— for advancing a shared vision for Open Education through a coordinated national effort that is diverse, inclusive, and distributed. The document will likely evolve as we continue our work together, and we invite feedback along the way.

Vision Statement for the Community

The vision for the community is to grow the use of Open Education to improve learning and advance equity and inclusion for all. Developed with input from K12 leaders across the country,^[1] the vision manifests as a commitment to Open Education across stakeholders, where:

	States promote and build awareness for Open Education across their districts and schools, and provide the infrastructure, guidelines, and resources to support statewide adoption and use of OE.
	Districts consider OER as a viable source for their instructional materials across all subject areas, and provide the infrastructure, guidelines, and resources to support district-wide adoption and use of OER.
	Teachers are equipped to find and adapt OER to meet the unique needs, preferences, and backgrounds of students in their classrooms, and to collaborate with peers in the sharing, creation, and use of OER.
	Students experience meaningful, engaging and accessible open resources and open teaching practices that meet the requirements of Culturally Responsive Teaching and Universal Design for Learning.
	Educational institutions and organizations are involved in providing expertise and/or resources (licensed under Creative Commons) to states, districts and schools.

Action Plan for 2021

1. Join Implementation Committee and/or Working Groups

Community members are invited to join one or more of the groups below by March 15, 2021. Topics and outputs listed are preliminary only, and are based on ideas that emerged during the December 2020 convening. The first task for members will be to refine their core topics and outputs after joining their group(s).

Group	Suggested Focused and Outputs
Leadership & Implementation Committee	Convened by ISKME, the implementation committee will include individuals motivated to build and implement governance structures for the community. It is envisioned that the committee will be responsible for establishing a basic strategic plan (e.g., refining this document) for the K12 Open Education Community, and ensuring that the workflow processes, communication channels, and incentives are in place to enable the work and the sharing that needs to happen within/across working groups. Implementation Committee members will also work hand in hand with working group leaders to elevate and disseminate the solutions and knowledge developed in the working groups.
Policy & Advocacy Working Group	Fostering greater inclusion and awareness around OER through advocacy that engages new communities and stakeholders. Outputs may include the development of resources such as an Advocacy Starter kid to enable administrators and educators in their roles as agents of cultural change. Fostering OER policy development, for example, by creating and sharing resources that states and districts can leverage to develop policy and procedures to enable OER use. Potential outputs may include a toolkit with timeline, tips, and steps toward policy approval and implementation, as well as example policy language.
Professional Learning Working Group	Empowering teachers to use, adapt, share and collaborate around OER and open pedagogy. This working group may result in the development of and resources to support educators and administrators in utilizing/adapting OER to be contextualized and culturally responsive, and for standards for accessibility and quality online teaching and learning. Outputs may also include adaptable professional learning modules, or even an open badge that districts agree upon to honor educator PD credits.
Quality Vetting & Curriculum Development Working Group	A focus on supporting districts, states, and educators in finding and adapting high quality OER in line with state and other quality rubrics and DEI-centric frameworks such as Universal Design for Learning and Culturally Responsive Teaching, for example through community developed evaluation rubrics and OER instructional design frameworks.

2. Develop Individual Workplans for Working Groups

The goal is for each working group to develop a workplan by April 15, 2021, with milestones, tasks for each milestone, and a determination of team roles. The workplan will likely start with a first task of a kick off call for each team to finalize working group objectives, possible deliverables, and role expectations, followed by a review of existing initiatives and resources in the field that address the group’s objectives. Working groups may find it helpful to use this template to develop their workplans.

3. Recruit Community Advisors to Support Working Groups

Each working group should recruit 2-5 advisors, including community members with lived experience to provide input on their team’s work and deliverables at preferred TBD intervals. Advisors and community members can include district and school administrators, students, teachers, parents, and others who have the time and ability to participate and provide feedback. It is recommended that scope of work and expectations be clearly defined by each working group for advisor participation, and that incentives be provided, such as teacher professional learning credit, work experience for students, or even monetary rewards, if possible.

4. Develop Working Group Outputs & Deliverables

Each working group self organizes to follow their workplan as they develop, iterate on, and finalize their deliverables. Working group deliverables are then shared in community folders by Fall 2021.

5. Share Working Group Results

Leaders/organizers of each working group participate in monthly Progress Meetings starting in June 2021 through November 2021, to share progress and results. All community members are invited to attend the monthly Progress Meetings.

Members of each working group are also asked to share results of their work outside of the K12 Open Education Community, including at relevant OER and other conferences such as OpenEd in November 2021.

6. Celebrate & Plan for 2022

Working group leaders organize a celebration and planning webinar for the full community, proposed for late November or early December 2021 to highlight the year’s progress, discuss successes and challenges, and develop an action plan for 2022.

Timeline for 2021

Activity	Deadline
Community Members Join Working Group(s)	March 8, 2021
Working Groups Finalize Their Objectives & Workplans	April 15, 2021
Working Groups Recruit Advisors and Lived Experience	May 14, 2021
Working Group Deliverables Finalized with Community Input	October 15, 2021 (target)
Working Group Deliverables Added to Shared Folders	November 1. 2021
Ongoing Progress Calls to Discuss Cross-Group Results	Monthly, starting July 2021
Ongoing Sharing of Results with the Wider Field (TBD design)	Fall 2021
Working Groups Present Results at OpenEd Conference (TBD design)	November 2021
End of Year Celebration Webinar and Planning for 2022	December 2021

Definition of Roles

The K12 Open Education Community is designed to encompass a broad range of stakeholders, from educators, to administrators, to community members. Key roles envisioned in this document and the 2021 action plan include:

ISKME

ISKME will convene and facilitate the K12 Open Education Community by organizing community meetings, providing resources as needed to facilitate the working groups (workplan template, shared folders, etc), and synthesizing and sharing the meta-level learnings and outputs across the field.

Implementation Committee Members

Convened by ISKME, the implementation committee will include individuals committed to open education and motivated to build and implement leadership and governance structures for the community. The committee is responsible for establishing a basic strategic plan (e.g., this document) for the K12 Open Education Community, and ensuring that the workflow processes, communication channels, and incentives are in place to enable the work and the sharing that needs to happen within/across working groups. Implementation Committee members work hand in hand with working group leaders (see below) to elevate and disseminate the solutions and knowledge developed in the working groups. The Implementation Committee may include educators, administrators, organizational representatives, and other stakeholders with lived experience.

Working Group Leaders

Tasked with overseeing the work of their groups, including setting up a kick off call with their group to finalize working group topics, deliverables and workplans. Working group leaders are also responsible for attending monthly progress meetings with the Open Education community to share their teams work and results, and ideally, sharing and advocating more broadly about the solutions developed to the field. Working group leaders may also choose to serve in the dual role of implementation committee member.

Working Group Members

Tasked with doing the work that has been defined by their group. Working group members may be organized into different roles, from creators of deliverables, to editors/reviewers, to project managers, depending on their capacity to contribute.

Community Advisors and Reviewers

Community advisors and reviewers are individuals who have been identified and recruited for a working group to provide input on its deliverables and solutions. They may include students, parents, teachers, and other community members who represent lived experience and who will be affected by the solutions developed through the community. This may also include district administrators who are new to the work of OER, and who can add value through critical review of the outputs created by the working groups.

[1] The vision statement was developed by participants at the December 2020 K12 Open Education Community Convening. The convening included leaders from organizations, states, and districts with current and future Open Education initiatives, or with an interest in exploring Open Education for a K12 teaching and learning.