Planning for Change: Leveraging American Rescue Plan (ARP) for Open Educational Resources (OER) to Enhance
Teaching and Learning
Developed by
The Policy and Advocacy Working Group of the K-12 Voices for Open
Released June 25, 2021
In this act, the federal government has provided a record amount of funding to public education. State and local leaders must use these federal funds on evidence-based policies and practices to address the pandemic’s impact on student learning. However, these federal funds should also be used to make systemic changes to our public schools so that they are funded more equitably to support investments in teaching, learning, and wraparound supports and so these resources are routinely available to close opportunity gaps. This bold initiative can launch a new norm that ensures digital capacity, expanded learning time, and social, emotional, and academic supports within community schools that nurture the whole child for years to come. - An Unparalleled Investment in U.S. Public Education: Analysis of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Learning Policy Institute, 3/11/2021
Change Through the Lens of Equity
The disruptions of the past year have ushered in a paradigm shift around access to learning worldwide. Although educational leaders may have yearned for a “return to normalcy,” they now realize that they must move beyond the status quo and short-term fixes to address long-term goals related to equity and access to education.
Learning resources play a major role in a district’s ability to prepare for and implement changes to address equity and access. Rather than relying on the “one-size-fits-all” approach of commercially produced materials, choosing learning resources that are modular and easily updated can enable districts to quickly adapt to changing circumstances and needs. Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials in any format that reside in the public domain or are released under an open license permitting no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others. OER can provide the flexibility and excellence required for today’s learning resources and the needs of learners living in an increasingly complex world
This summer, states and districts will be receiving funds through the American Rescue Plan (ARP) to address goals for change and innovation. Some of these funds will be specifically earmarked to support the development of innovative educational solutions. We recommend that district leaders consider meeting ARP goals through the strategic use of OER, and we believe that districts would benefit from guidance in implementing OER-based strategies to meet those goals.
OER for Long-term Growth
Recommendation 1: Adopt OER for Accelerated Learning
When looking to provide educational resources to accelerate learning, consider an investment in an equitable process that will “pay dividends” over many years. Rather than purchasing curriculum, which may not meet the unique needs of all your learners, gather your educators together to develop OER through curating and adapting existing open content, as well as creating OER themselves. Your teachers are the most knowledgeable resource for developing and/or adapting learning resources and providing them the opportunity to grow professionally through collaborating around improving curriculum is a “win-win”.
Recommendation 2: Integrate OER into Professional Learning
By providing educators with professional learning around curriculum improvement and the paid time to do this work, you will be offering your teachers a new opportunity to apply their creativity, experience and expertise in collaboration with their colleagues. Your teachers will feel less isolated, will grow their professional skills, and may see these benefits as incentives to remain in the classroom and in the field, thus stabilizing the workforce. By working with other educators to freely share ideas and inspirations, teachers will be relieved of the burden of providing solutions by themselves. OER is part of a system of support for teacher growth, based on the principle of mutual mentorship, where all teachers have something to offer to others.
Recommendation 3: Invest in Continuous Improvement
Although OER can provide relief to a school district’s budget by minimizing the costs of commercially produced curriculum, it should not be considered a “free” alternative. Curating existing OER requires an investment in teacher professional learning, through evaluating OER and implementing it with innovative teaching strategies. Developing OER demands at least a minimal investment in online infrastructure, and a committed investment in the skills and time of your educators.
To support sharing, OER can be easily centralized in one online location, using no-cost or affordable technological solutions that provide equitable access to all. District-based OER repositories involve a small investment with a considerable return toward supporting sharing and creating an environment of continual growth for teachers, as they learn new techniques and strategies from their fellow educators. State-based OER repositories are a broad-based solution to extend the benefits of OER adoption and use beyond well-resourced districts. Districts with fewer resources can benefit from the work by others through accessing a larger pool of high-quality, flexible, no-cost materials. The use of OER provides a powerful vehicle for spreading innovative, student-centric teaching strategies more quickly, and offers the opportunity for more comprehensive equity and access to student learning.
In summary, by shifting the long-term investment from commercial resources to open educational resources (OER), accompanied by incentives and time for teachers to collaboratively integrate research-based pedagogies, your district can use its ARP funds more efficiently and effectively to make a lasting difference for equity and access to high-quality education for all.
Where to Begin
- Develop leadership within your district or state, and reach out to interested parties to help define what your goal will be.
- Agree on at least one main goal for OER to support your own comprehensive plan by considering, for example:
- Do you wish to supplement your current learning resources, or to support/provide a full curriculum?
- Do you wish to support particular content areas or particular pedagogical approaches? It may help to begin with a narrow focus and build over time.
- How do you expect the use of individualized lessons to impact student learning?
- How will the development of OER impact your teachers?
- Start small. One approach is to create a pilot with a small group of interested teachers and design how you will develop a compensation plan for teachers to do this collaborative work, including:
- Provide additional contract hours to complete the work outside the typical work day or school year (evenings, weekends, or summer)
- Hire additional staff to create job-share positions that allow teachers to spend half their day in the classroom and half on this work
- Develop a Teacher On Special Assignment (TOSA) position where a teacher can step out of the classroom to lead the development of these resources alongside their colleagues.
- Provide intensive, hands-on professional learning opportunities to your participants, covering:
- Copyright, permissions, and open licensing (Creative Commons) for digital resources
- Curating resources
- Adapting resources created by other teachers
- Creating openly-licensed resources
- Share the results with others in your district or state and celebrate the idea of all educators being able to share and learn from their peers.
About Us
The K-12 Voices for Open is a group of education leaders and practitioners committed to advancing a shared vision for Open Education through a coordinated national effort that is diverse, inclusive, and distributed.
For more information, and to join the K-12 Open Education Collaborative community, please visit: K-12 Voices for Open site.
For more information about this paper, please contact: Jean Weller, jean.weller@doe.virginia.gov
Licensed CC BY 4.0, K-12 Voices for Open, 2021
