UNSDG Open Pedagogy Fellowship

Open educational resources (OER) increase equitable access to education and empower students in the learning process.  Open pedagogy – an approach to teaching and learning that draws on OER - places the student at the center of that learning process in a more engaging, authentic, and collaborative learning environment in order to achieve social justice in the community.  Montgomery College (MC) in Montgomery County, Maryland (U.S.A.), Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) in British Columbia (Canada), Maricopa Community Colleges (Arizona), the Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland (USA) and Pima Community College (Arizona) are committed to supporting social justice through this international partnership in which faculty can work across institutions to maximize global impact.

This global award-winning fellowship[1] provides faculty with an opportunity to work with their colleagues and students to impact change via open pedagogy and community engagement. The conceptual framework on which this fellowship is based is the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), which is a set of 17 goals that address a wide range of social issues, such as poverty, inequality, climate change, and peace and justice.  The SDGs are designed to achieve and maintain social justice and a sustainable future, with a target of the year 2030 set for the attainment of each goal.

This fellowship is designed to assist faculty with creating renewable assignments[2] (all of which will carry a Creative Commons license) to help students become agents of change in their own communities.  Each fellowship team will design three renewable assignments in Summer 2021. A minimum of two renewable assignments will be deployed in the classes of each fellowship team during Fall 2021. Faculty will be expected to present on their proposed assignments prior to their deployment.  A student showcase will take place during Spring 2022 (tentatively set for February 2022) in which a select number of students will present on how they improved their communities and achieved global justice through the UN SDG framework.

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Application Rubric

If selected, you will be partnered with a faculty member from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Montgomery College, Pima Community College and/or the Community College of Baltimore County. Fellowship teams will include 2 to 3 instructors from different disciplines and different institutions so as to maximize student impact.

Fellowship teams must include 2 to 3 instructors from different disciplines and different campuses or institutions so as to maximize student impact.  It is anticipated that 10 teams will be selected. Maricopa faculty who are accepted to the fellowship will be compensated with a one time stipend of $1000, payable upon completion of fellowship requirements. The table below lists the requirements of the fellowship, which must be met in accordance to the timeline shown:

Maricopa faculty interested in becoming a UN SDG Open Pedagogy Faculty Fellow should discuss their interest with their chair, dean and VPAA.  If selected, you will be partnered with a faculty member from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Montgomery College, Pima Community College and/or the Community College of Baltimore County. Communications with Kwantlen Polytechnic University or Montgomery College faculty can be done entirely through web conferencing and/or email. The application, which can be found below, must be completed in its entirety in order to be considered.  Applications must be supported by your department chair, dean and VPAA.

Applications are DUE by midnight on Wednesday, April 7, 2021.  Faculty will be notified of acceptance into the fellowship the week of April 12, 2021.

Open Maricopa will accept up to 20 faculty fellows for the 2021-22 UN SDG Open Pedagogy Faculty Fellowship.  Priority will be given to creating a cohort representative of a diverse set of disciplines and from across the 10 colleges in the district. 

View Faculty and Student Showcases from the 2020 UN SDG Open Pedagogy Fellowship 

For questions, you can contact any member of the leadership team:

Maricopa Community Colleges:

Ms. Deborah Baker: Deborah.Baker@domail.maricopa.edu

Dr. Carla Ghanem: Carla.Ghanem@gatewaycc.edu

Dr. Lisa Young: Lisa.Young@scottsdalecc.edu

Partnering Institutions

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Kwantlen Polytechnic University: Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani: Rajiv.Jhangiani@kpu.ca Ms. Urooj Nizami: Urooj.Nizami@kpu.ca

Montgomery College: Dr. Michael Mills: Michael.Mills@montgomerycollege.edu Ms. Shinta Hernandez: Shinta.Hernandez@montgomerycollege.edu

Pima Community College; Josie Miliken: jlmilliken@pima.edu

Resources for the UN SDG Pedagogy Faculty Fellowship

• United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Open Pedagogy Resources 

• Wiley, D., & Hilton III, J. L. (2018). Defining OER-Enabled Pedagogy. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 19(4). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i4.3601
• DeRosa, Robin, and Jhangiani, Rajiv. Open Pedagogy in DeRosa, R., Jhangiani, R., Robbins, T., Squires, D., Ward, J., Andrzejewski, A., ... & Mays, E. (2018). A guide to making open textbooks with students.
• Hegarty, B. (2015).Attributes of open pedagogy: A model for using open educational resources. Educational Technology, 3-13.
• Jhangiani, R. (2016, December 7). Ditching the “Disposable assignment” in favor of open pedagogy.https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/g4kfx

[1] The fellowship was awarded the Open Pedagogy Award for Excellence by Open Education Global (OE Global) in November 2020.

[2] Renewable assignments (also known as non-disposable assignments) are those that add value to a student's world, live outside of the boundaries and beyond the duration of the course, and are likely to have a lasting impact.  Disposable assignments, on the other hand, are those that only the instructor and students will see and which students are likely to throw away once they have been graded (Seraphin et al., 2019; Wiley, 2013).