Analyzing Historical Primary Source Open Educational Resources: A Blended Pedagogical Approach
Source: Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 18(2), 392-415, 2018.
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)
This article addresses the need for pedagogical approaches to working with open educational resources (OER).
Methods
The participants were 37 graduate students, who enrolled to a course on advanced multimedia systems. All participants tested the five-step strategy as they worked to analyze a set of 33 primary source letters on the topic of public health among slaves on 19th-century American plantations. The participants were 27 females and 10 males.
The authors employed a blended learning strategy, which included students' notes and tables and also online forum discussions.
Conclusion
The authors found that the blended pedagogical strategy led most students to identify patterns in primary source OERs. The students began to refine personal models of a complex domain, and applied primary and secondary source evidence to reason for claims and solutions to a transfer problem.
The authors recommend on adjustments to the strategy.
These recommendations include (a) support beyond reading to curate primary and secondary sources for greater source contextualization and corroboration,
(b) enhanced discussion throughout the strategy, including incorporation of expert perspectives to reveal additional interpretations beyond the individual,
and (c) enhanced argument building with visualization tools, ideally with collaborative capabilities.