Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources or OERs are free or extemely low cost online educational materials,  and according to 7 Things You Should Know about... Open Educational Resources these include textbooks, games, quizzes, and basically any other education related material. OERs are provided by universities, professionals, and publishers. Open Educational Resources are available to everyone. They can be used by educators to help teach a class or by an individual as a refresher or just for personal interest.

I searched for some OERs that would be beneficial to me both as a student and as a future elementary educator. OER Commons was helpful and provided OERs both for the primary grades and the post secondary level. The homepage included a list of all the different subjects, grade levels and also the type (ie: lesson plans, sllyabi, games, textbooks, etc.) of open educational resources that one could search for on the site. This source, Internet Archive, was more geared to to secondary advanced or post secondary courses. It inlcuded course ware for physics, calculus and higher level history and government courses. This would be helpful to those who sometime struggle with math or science and need extra practice or explanations, which would include myself. YouTube also has many videos for the primary grades that explain many different concepts that would be helpful to teachers of the elementary students.

I have discovered some other helpful sources explaining Open Educational Resources, here they are:

The OERS- Open Educational Resources This is a YouTube video explaining open educational resources and what they are.
40 Open Educational Resources You Should Know About This site includes many resources for children or elementary school educators.
Classroom Aid An extensive list, mostly of different sites that offer free online textbooks for all levels of education.

Teaching Channel

Teaching Channel is an online video archive of ideas and lessons from many different educators from the elementary and secondary levels.

Check out this video I found on Teaching Channel. (I couldn't figure out how to embed the video so I just used a hyperlink) This elementary school teacher uses technology to teach a math lesson. I think she does a really nice job keeping the children engaged.

Flipped Learning

According to Concordia University "It’s called the “flipped classroom” because what was formerly class work or lectures has become online video presentations which students view outside of class; and what was formerly “homework” is now classroom interaction with the teacher and students". Students are to watch the lectures at home and then come to school ready to utilize what they have learned to complete activities and work. The video below gives a good overview of the basics of flipped learning and explains in detail flipped learning, which helped me to understand it a little better.

This approach to learning, like everything else comes with both pros and cons. According to Amanda King, the pros of flipped learning include: allowing students to learn at a pace that is suitable for them, the videos can be made especially for their specific needs, students are less reliant on the teacher and therefore are able to help their peers, and because students can work at their own pace they no longer feel "dumb" when it takes them multiple times to understand a concept. The cons of flipped learning include: student negligence (students failing to watch the videos altogether), and there is a decreased amount of interaction between the students and teacher. Edutopia also states that there are many students who do not have internet access at home and cannot watch the videos.

 

I believe that if students are responsible and take the initiative to watch the video at that flipped learning can or could be very helpful and useful to education. In this age of education standards, more and more is added to the list of concepts students must learn in each grade. I believe that flipped learning would make teaching each of the many concepts more doable in one school year because there would be more time inside the classroom for the students to explore and really know each concept. In the video above, it shows different teacher's lectures or lessons using flipped learning. I thought it was interesting because each teacher had a different approach and many differnt elements were incorporated into all of their lessons. Many of them catered to the many learning styles and interests of students. There were some things in the videos that could be put in the videos but could be done in an actual classroom, which I find would be helpful to the students.

There are many websites out there that explain flipped learning and there are even websites that have videos of lessons or lectures. Some of these include Khan Academy, Wired @ Heart, and Flipped Learning.