Fleming College

Congratulations to Terry Greene, Digital Learning Advisor in Fleming’s Learning Design & Support Team, who accepted the Open Education Award for Excellence in Open Pedagogy on Tuesday, Nov. 26 in Milan, Italy. The award was presented by the Open Education Consortium, a global network for open education.

“It wouldn’t have been half as special to accept the award without having my daughter Hattie there with me. I was happy the ceremony was after the day of conferencing, as I had a chance to go pick her up from the babysitter and bring her to the ceremony,” said Terry from Milan, where he is spending the week attending the Open Education Global Conference, accepting the Open Pedagogy Award, networking and exploring more open education opportunities.

“Of course she totally upstaged me by running up to me in the cutest possible way as I got the award,” Terry laughs. “I made sure to pop my Fleming shirt and scarf on, so everyone knew where the best sharers of pedagogy come from!”

The Open Education Awards for Excellence recognizes outstanding contributions to the Open Education community, including leadership, resources, projects and initiatives. Terry received the Open Pedagogy award for the Open Faculty Patchbook, which he worked on through Fleming College and eCampus Ontario.

The Open Faculty Patchbook is a helpful resource written by faculty for faculty and follows the idea of being a “community quilt of pedagogy.” Individual faculty members contribute stories (“patches”) on different teaching topics and, when compiled together (like a quilt), it provides a helpful resource on how to teach at college.

“It’s the community quilt of pedagogy and, if you have enough pieces, you can try to cover everything,” said Terry.

The idea stemmed from an open education conference in Richmond, Virginia in fall 2016, which Terry attended for professional development. Keynote speaker Robin DeRosa shared her experience creating The Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature, a textbook she created with the help of her students, which sparked Terry’s idea of an open textbook for faculty.

“Her goal was to save students money with an open textbook and she took it to the next level by getting the students involved in its creation,” Terry explains. “The free textbook was about American literature and her students helped create sections of it, including introductions, annotations and discussion. When you put it altogether, you have a free textbook that you could keep growing every year. And it’s openly licensed and open access to any student anywhere. Not just Robin’s.”

The idea inspired Terry to create something similar about teaching, where faculty members could share their experiences with others to help them grow. His goal is to continue building the Patchbook and add to it annually for faculty members, new and seasoned, to read.

Terry is pleased with the success of the Patchbook and never expected to win an award. He said he attended the 2016 conference hoping to bring something back to Fleming College and feels this proved successful. Now he is hopeful the Open Education Global Conference may inspire him again with something new!