I am thankful to Jason for sharing his work with me. In our respective responses to one another’s assignments, we both recognized that there are some interesting similarities between our assignments which I found to be very instructive. 

In terms of assessment, I am intrigued by the fact that we are approaching rubrics from a similar place. Jason utilizes three different rubrics, one developed by the instructor, one by the class, and one for self-grading. I am examining ways that I can implement a similar model into my assignments. I appreciate Jason’s use of a self-grading component, which feels very “open.” I have used this in the past and frankly, in the transition to online learning, I neglected to use it. I find it quite useful in my performance classes, especially in scene work, so I look forward to bringing it back in the fall. Thanks to Jason for reminding me of this assessment tool.

Jason’s assignments are three assignments that are scaffolded in that one assignment leads to the next. They are very well conceived. The pedagogical approach is impressive, as is the academic rigor. I have never used Zines before and I feel under-qualified to use them in the classroom.  I find them not only interesting, but I also think they would translate well into the theatre classroom. Further, Jason’s use of Zines in his assignments has made me re-examine my own assignments in terms of their “openness.” While components like Wikipedia and found texts are open (which are components of my assignments), there are other components that feel more “closed” (published play scripts) than I would like. The openness in the pedagogical design of Jason’s work has shed light on that for me. Lastly, one of Jason’s assignments has a presentation component which reminded me of a presentation tool that I recently used for one of my online classes – VoiceThread. It allows students to upload recorded presentations and then the entire class and instructor can view them and comment on them within VoiceThread. It’s integrated in CUNY Academic Commons (which is how I utilized it) but apparently, CUNY just bought a subscription to integrate it into Blackboard. I just thought I would bring it up in the event it was useful for these assignments, or any of the assignments within our cohort.

There was some discussion about whether or not these scaffolded assignments are in fact three distinct assignments or just one very detailed, staged assignment. In reading the assignment guidelines, I think they feel like distinct assignments. Granted, yes, they do scaffold into one culminating assignment but each stage of the assignment, to me, has its own respective learning outcomes which, in my opinion, identifies it as a distinct assignment. Further, I feel that while the overarching goal is for each assignment to lead into the next, it seems that you could stop at the first or second assignment and they would still be worthy assessments. Curious how others feel about this in relationship to scaffolded assignments.

I look forward to revisiting my own assignments with this new perspective and additional pedagogical questions.

I apologize for not posting this sooner, as I know you will not have time to read for today, but I will once again plug the work of Maura A. Smale and Mariana Regalado who co-authored Digital Technology as Affordance and Barrier in Higher Education. They are both CUNY professors and their work documents the challenges of open education when students do/do not have access to technology. As I wrote about in my earlier post, this seems to be especially relevant for this moment. While I first read it about a year ago, I think I need to give it another read this summer, especially if we are looking at some form of distance-learning for the fall 2020 semester. I have a PDF of the text if anyone would like me to share it with them, or if we want to post to the course site.

In terms of SDGs, piloting my course and possible assignments, I plan on piloting this work in THA 50: Introduction to Theatre. It is the course in which I first began my work with open pedagogy and I believe it is time to revisit/rethink that work. The SDGs that I am considering are Goal #5: Gender Equality and Goal #10: Reduced Inequalities. Preliminarily, I have two possible assignments that I am considering. The first is less of an assignment and more of a theme for the course, in that all of the plays that we would read and analyze in the course would somehow intersect, illuminate, grapple with the selected SDGs. Plays/Genres that come to mind include School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play by Jocelyn Bioh, Eclipsed by Danai Gurira, the work of Augusto Boal and Theatre of the Oppressed (Brazil), Is This a Room by Tina Satter, and Sactuary City by Martyna Majok. The second assignment is a “Rewriting His(hers)tory” assignment where students select women artists from theatre history, conduct research and then explore the Wikipedia pages of these artists for gaps in the information. Students will then submit edits to expand the Wikipedia entries with cited secondary literature.

When I initially applied to be an OER fellow and this pandemic was not such a presence in our lives, I thought I would explore these SDGs through THA 53: Acting II/Scene Study (which I definitely could still do). But I am doing several “open” projects right now, all of which are touching upon my work in THA 50 so it seems like the logical choice. I look forward to seeing how these preliminary ideas expand and morph as our conversations continue.

I know I am a little late with this post but I did want to document some of my thoughts/questions in response to the recent readings. As educators and students work to navigate this current moment, I have been thinking a lot about what “open” means, as well as the benefits and challenges of engaging in open educational practices while also converting classes to online formats.

My experience with open educational practices (large umbrella term) is both varied and honestly, inconsistent. In the Spring of 2017, I worked with Shawna to adopt an existing open textbook (out of the University of Florida) for our 10-15 sections of THA 50: Introduction to Theatre course. We supplemented the existing open textbook with e-scripts of plays from the Kingsborough library that all KCC students would, theoretically, have access to. The existing text, entitled Theatrical Worlds, is not perfect and it is missing units/chapters on topics that are in our THA 50 curriculum. That said, faculty have reported that student engagement with the course text and the dramatic scripts has increased. While this is an improvement, we still have work to do to create an OER that is more robust and truly reflective of our curriculum.

While I am weaving through the obstacle course of “open” as an educator, I am also at a time when I am navigating it as a student. After completing my MFA in Musical Theatre in 2004 and my MA in Theatre Studies in 2017, I returned to graduate study in the fall of 2018 to pursue my PhD in Theatre & Performance at The Graduate Center. I am completing my coursework this semester, online, having never taken an online class in my life. My own struggles and questions with online learning as a student remind me of those that my students might be experiencing. Further, as part of my doctoral studies, I am completing a certificate in Interactive Technology & Pedagogy which has pushed me to question the concept of open, of access, and of the role of technology in education. The work of Maura A. Smale and Mariana Regalado who co-authored Digital Technology as Affordance and Barrier in Higher Education, documents the varying degrees of access to technology across CUNY. While I am privileged to have access to technology, Smale and Regalado remind me that as I work to create openness in my teaching, an over-reliance on technology might marginalize the students I strive to bring into the conversation.