OE Global 2018

Within Canadian K-12 education, the nascent movement toward OER use and practices continues to develop within various pockets throughout the country. Unlike the growth of OER at higher education, for the Canadian K-12 system unique OER complications arise with which school authorities at all levels must wrestle, in part due to provincial authority over this level of education, the role of information privacy concerns for minors, and the powerful legacy of educational publishers dominating the supply of resources for K-12. Despite these complications, OER and an Open Pedagogy are developing within K-12 classrooms although practitioners may not initially identify their educational practices as part of an Open Pedagogy. This lack of acknowledgement of their open practice speaks to the need for further OER awareness within the field by all levels of educators. Albeit nascent OER users, educators practice to some degree aspects of the eight attributes of an Open Pedagogy (Hegarty, 2015) and it is through their experiences of teaching that they explore and discuss their perceptions of OER and the complicated implications that accompany the use of and support for K-12 OER. This paper provides the context for a proposed research study whereby practicing K-12 teachers as part of their graduate studies, participated in online discussion forums that examined OER awareness, use and issues. Using an interpretative phenomenological analysis will be justified to examine the eight attributes of an Open Pedagogy with a deeper examination of the attribute of Openness, Trust and People. This presentation examines the research in process with respect to the role of trust within an Open Pedagogy.