Facilitators' Perspectives as Mediators of the Local Learning Circles of the OpenMed Open Course

Abstract

The overarching goal of OpenMed (https://openmedproject.eu) is to raise awareness and facilitate the adoption of Open Educational Practices (OEP) and engagement with Open Educational Resources in the South-Mediterranean region, with a particular focus on higher education (HE) in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Palestine. The project is structured in three phases: 1) review of Open Education initiatives, 2) widening participation in OEP and 3) capacity building opportunities for lecturers and other HE professionals. In this paper, we will share our learning from phase three, which involved the pilot run of a course "Open Education: fundamentals and approaches". In particular, we will focus on how facilitators, working within the eight partner universities in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Palestine, engaged with 70 lecturers and other HE professionals, collaborating in local Learning Circles (https://learningcircles.p2pu.org/en/), with a focus on capacity building in the adoption of OEP and engagement with OER. The pilot course represents one of the first attempts to build capacity with university staff in the field of open education in the Mediterranean region, and has been designed, developed and piloted collaboratively among the institutions involved from Europe and the South-Mediterranean region.We will present an overview of the five course modules, and the pedagogical approach adopted, underpinned by Fink's (2003) integrated approach to course design; a taxonomy which goes beyond rote learning, or straightforward application of skills, towards the development of creative, engaging, reflective learning experiences as both process and outcome. The central tenet of Fink's approach is that course design needs to incorporate significant learning goals rather than purely content-driven methods, with an emphasis on active learning, encouraging the application of course content to real-life problems and having good systems in place for social interaction, feedback and assessment (Fink, 2003).In sharing the facilitators' perspectives, we draw on the analysis of data captured pre-and post the pilot course including mixed method data from online surveys and semi structured interviews. Question areas were adapted from the European Digital Competence Framework for Educators (DigCompEdu) and considered the learning environment, organisational, pedagogical and digital skills required to effectively engage and empower learners with the course content, including facilitators perspectives on what are seen to be core attitudes and beliefs necessary for facilitating intercultural exchange. In addition, we will share how the facilitators went about the assessment of the university staffs' Final Project Work, and how the moderation and quality processes piloted were both facilitated and experienced.In seeking the perspectives of the facilitators' across the eight universities, complemented with data from the course platform (Sakai) using learning analytics, we will present the findings in ways which highlights the comparative practices of the different facilitators and their Learning Circles across the partner regions.