Heywire8 Think Tank/Wellington/Participants/Andrew Higgins

My personal statement is entirely pragmatic and refers to OERs as a source of learning and teaching activities concerning tertiary teacher education as a subset of teacher education. It is my observation so far that New Zealand tertiary institutions, especially universities, design, create and teach a variety of courses for tertiary teachers that are all fairly similar in purpose and and content. A somewhat similar issue arises in the Australian University sector for thier collection of Graduate Diplomas/ Certificates in Higher Education

From a user perspective, academic staff are likely to move institutions within New Zealand and Australia in their careers, so it makes some sense if those who seek tertiary teacher education qualifications enjoy similar experiences, albeit tailored to meet the needs of each institution, but within a generally agreed framework. The cost savings in developing shareable artefacts are obvious.

Should the studies and institutions become mature enough, some of the subjects or papers comprising the qualifications might be shared and cross credited. The OER place is the best one to do this. Those institutions wishing to attempt this kind of work in a commercial context are quite likeley to find themselves very quickly restricted by both cost-sharing and intellectual property discussions, some of which are hard to resolve outside the legal context.

My vision is that we can learn to co-develop, share and even exchange credit in what is a small but important task whose end beneficiaries, students, may benefit by having their academic teachers as well skilled in the arts of teaching as is possible within the usual constraints of university academic life.