Care ethics was championed by feminist scholars dissatisfied with theories of ethical action that relied solely on objectivity and rationality and omitted relationships, reciprocity, context, and responsiveness (Hamington, 2017). Similarly, the presenters ask: How can we center, communicate, and realize an ethic of care in our open education work? Care resonates with open education commitments to repair access and encourage cooperative relationships to ensure education as a basic human right. The presenters’ efforts to root open education work in care aligns with the proposition that “Making Open for All” is not a destination but rather a process of ongoing, intentional action that considers all people, languages, cultures, and contexts. We acknowledge that open is a concept and practice that is complex, situated, personal, and constantly negotiated (Cronin, 2020) and, therefore, requires a critical approach.
Inspired by Tronto and Fisher’s model of care, we established a care-based framework, Care in the Open: A Framework to guide our open education work. The Framework recognizes the risk and vulnerability diverse students experience working in open, and in educational landscapes complicated by surveillance technologies and student data ownership issues. Aiming to invite and support educators’ reflections when designing and implementing learning experiences involving OER and open pedagogies, we crafted prompts to encourage educator concentration on care. Subsequently, we engaged a small sample of educators in conversations about the framework and its effectiveness for centering values in open education.
In this pre-recorded presentation we’ll explore these educator perspectives, inviting viewers to consider how they might use, adapt, or take inspiration from the framework to foreground and enact care—for students, for peer educators, for colleagues—in their open education work. We’ll begin by briefly introducing the scholars who inspired our care-based approach, including Cronin (2020), Fisher and Tronto (1990), Noddings (1984), and Tronto (1993). Next, we’ll discuss our development of the Framework. The presentation focus will be the educators’ perspectives on our Framework and care in open education. We’ll discuss how these perspectives will inform our further Framework development and enactment of care in our open education work. To facilitate dialogue and feedback on the Framework from conference participants’, we’ll share openly-licensed slides and a shared Padlet for comment and reflection by conference participants during and beyond the scheduled, live viewing of our presentation. We also look forward to joining the chat to invite and respond to conference participants’ reflections, comments, and questions.
Session materials:
Slides;
Padlet, for attendees' reflection and feedback; and
Care in the Open: A Framework, with included
prompts for educator reflection.
After participating in this session, attendees will be able to:
- Draw connections and complements between feminist theories of care and the foundational values of care in the open education movement
- Consider translating the Framework to local contexts, and using it with local educators, equipped with a textured understanding of our Framework development, iteration, and conversations with educators
- Contrast care perspectives, and enactments of care, as a result of conference participants’ dialogue in the chat during the scheduled, live viewing of our presentation, and in a shared Padlet for comment and reflection by conference participants.
