Open Pedagogy Examples
These are just a few examples of what Open Pedagogy might look like in practice. There are many possibilities, no two Open Pedagogy projects will look the same.
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A Shared Public Timeline as Open Pedagogy
In this assignment, Dr. Scott Jenkinson, Education Foundations, has students collectively create an accessible, multimedia timeline on the history of public education in the United States. Rather than submitting separate research papers seen only by the instructor, students contribute entries to a shared timeline that can serve as an open educational resource for future students, other courses, and the public.
Each student researches significant events, people, movements, or policies connected to public education and creates timeline entries using openly available or openly licensed sources. Entries include a meaningful image, a short summary, citations, links to open resources, and a connection to a current issue in public education. Students then read and respond to one another’s entries, adding questions, further resources, and possible topics for future contributors.
This is a useful example of open pedagogy because the assignment does more than ask students to learn about educational history. It invites them to help organize and communicate that knowledge for others. The project is also designed to be accessible in two senses: usable by a broad range of learners and built from materials that others can freely access, use, and share.
The timeline illustrates several dimensions of openness at once. It supports access by creating a public-facing learning resource. It uses permissions by asking students to work with public domain or openly licensed materials. It encourages participation by making students contributors to a shared knowledge project. It also creates a renewable structure, since future students can extend, revise, and deepen the timeline over time.
Like many open pedagogy projects, the value is not only in the finished product. The learning happens through the process of researching, selecting, connecting, citing, designing, and contributing to a collective resource that continues beyond a single course.
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Students as Contributors to Knowledge
One way open pedagogies take shape is by inviting students to contribute to the creation, interpretation, or organization of knowledge rather than simply consuming information.
For example, ETSU historians Dr. Constanze Weise and Dr. John Rankin developed an open world history textbook designed to incorporate a wider range of perspectives and voices than are often represented in traditional survey texts. As part of the project, students engaged with the material by creating historical timelines, identifying significant events, and helping make connections across cultures and time periods.
The openness of this project extends beyond the textbook itself. While the use of an open educational resource increases access and adaptability, the pedagogical approach also creates opportunities for students to participate actively in the construction of historical understanding. Students are not simply reading history; they are helping organize, interpret, and communicate it.
This example illustrates how open pedagogies often combine multiple dimensions of openness:
- Access through openly available course materials.
- Permissions through the ability to adapt and revise resources.
- Participation through student contributions to learning activities.
- Representation and Power through the inclusion of perspectives often omitted from traditional narratives.
Like many open pedagogy projects, its significance lies not in any single activity but in the ways openness shapes both the resources being used and the relationships learners have with knowledge.
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Students Building the Tools of the Discipline
Open pedagogies do not always begin with open educational resources. Sometimes they emerge when students are invited to participate directly in the creation of knowledge, tools, or practices that would traditionally be provided for them.
When supply-chain disruptions made commercial entomology pinning boards expensive and difficult to obtain, faculty and students at ETSU developed a different solution. Biology and engineering faculty Dr. Melissa Whittaker collaborated with students to design and manufacture custom insect pinning boards for use in General Entomology courses. Rather than purchasing equipment, students assembled the boards themselves from laser-cut components designed and fabricated on campus.
The project addressed a practical problem, but it also transformed students' relationship to the discipline. Instead of receiving tools created elsewhere, students became participants in the design, construction, and use of the equipment. The activity connected students to a long-standing tradition within entomology, where researchers often create and adapt their own tools to meet specific needs.
This example illustrates an important principle of open pedagogy: learners can move beyond consuming knowledge and resources to helping create them. While the project was not explicitly developed as an OER or open pedagogy initiative, it embodies several dimensions of openness. Students participate in authentic disciplinary work, collaborate across fields, contribute to solutions that benefit future learners, and gain insight into how knowledge and tools are created rather than simply delivered.
The openness here lies less in licensing or public access and more in participation, agency, and the sharing of disciplinary practices. Students are invited into the work of the discipline itself.
Early, O.J. (2026, Feb. 6). When supplies fail, ETSU students build their own. ETSU News. https://news.etsu.edu/articles/when-supplies-fail-etsu-students-build-their-own
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Collaborative Dialogue as Knowledge Creation
Open pedagogies are often associated with student-created resources, public projects, or open educational materials. However, openness can also emerge through the ways knowledge is developed and shared within a learning community.
In one philosophy of education course, students participated in an experiment that reimagined the relationship between reading, discussion, and writing. Course readings were made available in multiple formats, including text and AI-generated audio versions. Class meetings were devoted to extended seminar-style discussions. These conversations were recorded, transcribed using speech-to-text technology, and shared with participants after each session.
Students then revised and edited their own contributions, transforming the raw transcript into a more polished written dialogue. By the end of the semester, these collaboratively edited conversations became a book documenting the collective intellectual work of the class.
This example illustrates how emerging technologies can support forms of openness that extend beyond content access. AI tools were not used to generate assignments or replace student thinking. Instead, they helped make dialogue more accessible, captured contributions that might otherwise be lost, and enabled students to participate in a collaborative process of reflection, revision, and knowledge creation.
Several dimensions of openness are visible in this project. Students help create the primary course artifact rather than merely consuming it. Multiple pathways for participation are available, including speaking during class and contributing through later revision. The transcript makes the learning process itself visible and editable. Most importantly, the class becomes a community engaged in the shared construction of understanding rather than the one-way transmission of information.
The openness here lies not in the use of AI itself, but in how technology supports participation, accessibility, collaboration, and the collective creation of knowledge.
A Report to the Academy. https://formoflife.net/ra/
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Sharing Teaching Practices Through Open Resources
Faculty participating in Summer Instructors' Institute hosted by the CTE explore the Thinking Routines developed by Project Zero at Harvard. These openly licensed resources provide adaptable protocols that encourage observation, questioning, reasoning, perspective-taking, and reflection. Because the routines can be freely shared and adapted, instructors across disciplines incorporate them into their own courses, creating more active and student-centered learning environments. In this example, openness supports not only access to educational materials but also the circulation of pedagogical knowledge among educators.
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Students Creating Public Scholarship Through Podcasting
The ETSU Department of Social Work developed the ETSU Social Work Policy Podcasts, a series of student-created podcasts exploring issues related to social welfare policy and social justice. Topics include the history of social welfare, policy analysis, race and economic oppression, women and policy, environmental justice, advocacy, LGBTQ+ community issues, Indigenous and Sovereign Nation perspectives, and the work of professional and community organizations.
Rather than demonstrating their learning solely through assignments seen only by the instructor, students contributed to a public-facing resource designed to communicate social work knowledge to broader audiences. In the process, they researched policy issues, synthesized information, developed communication skills, and translated disciplinary knowledge into accessible formats.
This project illustrates several dimensions of openness. Students actively participate in the creation and communication of knowledge rather than simply consuming information. The podcast format increases access by making content available to audiences beyond the classroom and by offering an alternative mode of engagement. The project also touches on power by amplifying student voices and engaging with questions of representation, advocacy, and social justice. Finally, the podcasts contribute to legibility by helping learners and listeners better understand how policies are created, analyzed, and experienced within communities.
Like many open pedagogy projects, the value lies not only in the final product but in the process of inquiry, collaboration, communication, and contribution. Students are invited to engage in authentic disciplinary work while creating resources that can inform and benefit others beyond the duration of a single course.