The Open for Antiracism program was launched in 2020 to create an opportunity for California Community College faculty to transform their classrooms to be antiracist through the affordances of OER and open pedagogy. Participants are encouraged to use existing OER and improve upon it by adding underrepresented viewpoints and diverse and inclusive images to their classroom materials in collaboration with their students.
In this presentation, we explore the multi-year development of our program, and our Year 3 plans for capacity-building around bringing antiracist pedagogy to potentially hostile learning communities.
For Year 1, participants consisted of individual faculty from 16 different colleges who applied and completed an intensive facilitated online course to learn about how to be an antiracist teacher through the lens of antiracist pedagogy, OER, and open pedagogy. The following semester, they implemented an action plan in their classroom plan linking OER and open pedagogy with antiracist pedagogy. The implementation phase continued the workshop environment with coaching, OER support, and monthly webinars featuring antiracist educators and policymakers.
In evaluating the positive research findings from faculty and students in the first year, the leadership team with our advisory partners saw a need for more ongoing institutional support to continue and expand the antiracist work faculty had started while enrolled in the program and to measure the impact on students outcomes over a multi-semester time frame.
For Year 2, faculty teams of up to six instructors from a single college were invited to apply. A letter of support from a department chair, dean, or other administrator was requested to ensure that leadership at participating institutions would be engaged and also available for end-of-program feedback. Furthermore, student outcomes over multiple semesters for participating faculty would be collected to determine if implementing antiracist open pedagogy would impact student success particularly for traditionally underserved students.
During this interactive session, you will learn about the findings of the Year 2 enhanced program, including changes that faculty made in creating antiracist classrooms and the impact of their work at their institutions. The program leads from CCCOER and College of the Canyons will invite suggestions for improvements and an OFAR program coach will ask attendees to share how their institutions are engaging with the need to transform teaching and institutional practices to be antiracist. The interactive discussion will conclude with the question of how the field of OER can more effectively engage with antiracist pedagogy.
Participants at all levels of OER knowledge are welcome!
By attending this session, attendees will be able to:- Describe how open education can support antiracist pedagogy
- Summarize the outcomes of the second year of the Open for Anti-Racism program
- Gain a greater understanding of the importance of institutional support in making classrooms antiracist
