Open for Antiracism: Using Open Education to Support Antiracist Teaching

Presented by:

• Una T. Daly, Community College Consortium for OER, Director, Open Education Global
• James Glapa-Grossklag, Dean, Educational Technology, Learning Resources, and Distance Learning, College of the Canyons
• Joy Shoemate, Director of Online Education, College of the Canyons
• Oliver A. Rosales, Ph.D., Professor of History, Bakersfield College

Speaker Bios:

• Una Daly is the Director of the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) at Open Education Global, a national community of practice focused on transforming education to be equitable, diverse, and inclusive. CCCOER co-leads the Open for Anti-racism program using OER and open pedagogy to create antiracist classrooms in California community colleges and supports the Regional Leaders of Open Education network elevating marginalized voices and underserved students. CCCOER has previously partnered with California Community Colleges’ Zero Textbook Cost Degree program and Achieving the Dream’s OER Degree initiative to provide technical assistance to grantee colleges.
• James is Dean, Educational Technology, Learning Resources, and Distance Learning at College of the Canyons. He supervises Tutoring, Distance & Accelerated Learning, Libraries, and Educational Travel. He directs the statewide DECT grant. James is past President of the Open Education Consortium; the Community College Consortium for OER; and Directors of Educational Technology in California Higher Education. He has served as a trainer on OER for the US State Department and is an invited keynote at national conferences. He earned faculty tenure in history, and has taught online, hybrid, and face-to-face.
• Joy Shoemate, Director of Online Education, at College of the Canyons supports instructors’ successful integration of technology into teaching and learning to promote student success, persistence and completion in online courses. She also oversees OER development and implements training on best practices in online teaching and learning. Joy serves on CCCOER’s Executive Council and as Co-Director of US Department of Education Open Textbook grant, California Consortium for Equitable Change in HSI OER (CC ECHO). More recently, Joy co-developed and co-facilitated the Open for Anti-Racism course to support CCC faculty with leveraging open pedagogy and OER to make their courses antiracist.
• Oliver A. Rosales is Professor of History at Bakersfield College and Board Chair for California Humanities. His research and teaching expertise is United States and Latinx history. He has directed grants focused on digital humanities, oral history, and professional development for community college faculty. In 2023, he will co-direct a Landmarks of American History and Culture (NEH) grant promoting rural California landmarks for teachers. His forthcoming book from the University of Texas Press focuses on multiracial civil rights history in Bakersfield, California. He is interested in the intersection of archives generation, geospatial technologies, and open pedagogy among racialized populations.

Session Info:

The Open for Antiracism program supports California Community College faculty aiming to leverage Open Education to make their teaching antiracist. The program emerged as a response to institutional statements decrying racism but not always supporting faculty transformation of online classroom practices. Program participants complete a facilitated online course to learn about Antiracist Pedagogy, Open Educational Resources, and Open Pedagogy, and the connections between these. Participants then implement a concrete change to a semester-long class by integrating OER or open pedagogy as a way to make the class antiracist. Participants receive on-going support through monthly webinars featuring speakers on anti-racism, regular meetings with coaches, and dedicated OER support. In some cases, existing OER reproduces the biases of larger society, for example, by emphasizing the perspectives of majority cultures and languages.

This program trains faculty to view OER as an opportunity to improve existing materials and create new materials with an explicitly inclusive and equitable perspective. In addition, participants are encouraged to do this via co-creation with their students. In sum, the program provides an example of how to move beyond reproducing the biases found in commercial materials and to explicitly make instructional materials inclusive and equitable. During this session, you will hear from both program leaders and faculty participants about their experience in the program. Data collected on faculty perceptions and student outcomes will be shared. The evolution of the program from individual to faculty teams in order to foster institutional support and impact for antiracist pedagogy will be discussed. The audience will be asked to participate in a dialogue on how their institution can most effectively engage with anti-racist pedagogy.

Session Outcomes:

• Define antiracist pedagogy.
• Describe how open education can support antiracist pedagogy in online classes and beyond.
• Summarize outcomes of the Open for Antiracism Program.

Session Resources:

• https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yJZ6Z5ZNjNU8Q-k-6e0rXbhj4BUY6ViWHxPcuroBeSU/edit?usp=sharing
• https://www.cccoer.org/ofar/

View the Recorded Session