Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity is the only national non-profit dedicated to strengthening, growing, and amplifying the impact of educator preparation at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), with the longer-range goals of both diversifying the teaching profession and intentionally addressing critical issues of educational equity for all students. Our vision is for all students to have access to diverse, highly effective educators. We see OER as a way to move closer to this goal.
This session will narrate the journey of BranchED’s OER initiative, highlighting our OER Summer Institutes. In our institutes, we guide teacher education faculty at MSIs through the development of OER for teacher education courses. The OER developed in these virtual spaces are created for and by teacher educators at MSIs. By aligning with the BranchED Framework for Quality Educator Preparation, OER designed in the institute represent and center MSI communities through inclusive instruction and culturally responsive and sustaining practices. Through the development of and teaching with the OER created in our institute, faculty model inclusive and equitable teaching for teacher candidates, who are our teachers of tomorrow.
In this 25-minute pre-recorded video, I will show the BranchED institute course materials, the OER development process, and the OER modules that were developed in the institutes. I will also share BranchED’s efforts to improve the value of OER work in academic promotion and tenure practices through the development of our OER Peer Review Committee. Participants will also learn about the BranchED Equity Rubric for OER Evaluation, the first rubric developed specifically to evaluate for equity in instructional materials in the field of teacher preparation. Links to all resources created in OER Commons will be shared with participants.
After participating in this session, attendees will be able to:
- Identify the BranchED mission and quality framework
- Discuss practices for facilitating OER design
- Access OER materials shared in the session
