OER Fellowship Program

ISKME’s 2011-12 Open Educational Resources (OER) Fellowship Program mentors educational leaders to champion OER into classrooms, school districts, and communities. The program runs from November 2011 until October 2012 and includes up to eight fellows.

OER Fellows graduate the program with the ability to:

• Collaborate, create, and share innovative OER Projects
• Mentor educators who are new to OER
• Advocate for the use of OER in their communities
• Incorporate technology tools (wikis, blogs, Twitter, Flickr, OER Commons) into their teaching practice

Fellows work together to share teaching strategies, innovative ideas, and curricular resources as they forge new pathways in K-20 teaching collaboration. Throughout the program, ISKME facilitates Fellows’ professional development through digital, social, and peer-based learning. ISKME’s approach leverages fellows’ existing practices and adds ISKME’s OER Commons (www.oercommons.org) network as an open teaching and learning resources.

ISKME’s OER Fellowship project, supported by the Hewlett Foundation, has the following goals:

• Engage in-service and pre-service teachers in trainings focused on collaborative learning strategies and shared online resources and processes
• Develop and share a training model for others to use and adapt
• Create a network that supports OER awareness and use in education

Timeline:

• Fall/Winter 2011 – Online training sessions; content creation; reporting and feedback
• Spring 2012 – Social networking; co-facilitation and mentoring through training webinars and in-person workshops presentations; documenting teaching resources used; student project creation
• Summer 2012 – Present and facilitate OER trainings; share and reflect on OER student projects.

Completion Requirements:

• Participate in a minimum of six of  OER training workshops either online or in-person during the 2011-2012 school year
• Develop and document an OER curriculum project for a classroom setting that consists of five or more new or adapted open digital resources, such as inquiries, lessons, and hands-on activities.
• Align OER materials to common core curriculum standards
• Incorporate student work and feedback into a project using text, photos, and video
• Use project and resources in the classroom setting on at least three occasions. Reflect on experiences in discussion and written formats
• Communicate and collaborate with other OER fellows online and in-person in monthly meetings
• Contribute to OER online professional development course creation and mentoring
• Introduce colleagues to OER and collaborative processes. Form an online cohort of at least five other teachers using social networking to discuss issues and challenges related to OER and education
• Present at virtual and in-person trainings about: learnings and experiences with OER processes, the Fellowship Program, and the potential for the widespread impact of OER
• Document and give feedback to ISKME on the impact of the Fellowship Program through a survey and video reflection

The 2011-2012 OER Fellowship Application is available here: http://wiki.oercommons.org/mediawiki/index.php/File:OER_Fellowship_Appli...

Please contact ISKME's Education Program Manager, Megan Simmons, at megan@iskme.org for more information.