Achieve OER Institute: How Minnesota and Six Other States are Using OER

1. Hans Voss Policy Associate Achieve Deborah Proctor Online & Digital Learning Specialist Minnesota Department of Education Achieve OER Institute: How Minnesota and Six Other States are Using OER

2. Achieve OER Institute: How Minnesota and Six Other States are Using OER July 29, 2013

3. Conversation Starters What are OER (Open Education Resources)? Where do you go to look for OER? How do you (would you) determine quality of OER?

4. OER Definition Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license. These resources may be used free of charge, distributed without restrictionand modified without permission.

5. About Achieve • Achieve was created by the nation’s governors and business leaders in 1996 following the first National Education Summit. • Achieve is a bipartisan, non-profit organization that helps states raise academic standards, improve assessments, and strengthen accountability to prepare all young people for postsecondary education, work, and citizenship. • Achieve’s Board consists of 2 Democratic governors, 2 Republican governors and 4 CEOs, and is chaired by former Intel CEO Craig Barrett. • What We Do: • Convene States and Leaders • Provide Technical Assistance to States • Conduct Research and Development • Offer Advocacy, Communications and Outreach Tools and Support

6. About Achieve • Now working with 35 states in the American Diploma Project (ADP) Network to design and implement policies that will prepare all young people for postsecondary education, careers and citizenship and aim to close the expectations gap. • Working with 26 Lead States and other interested states on the adoption of the newly completed Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), developed by the states through a process managed by Achieve. • Serving as Project Management Partner for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a consortium of 22 states plus the U.S. Virgin Islands working together to develop a common set of K-12 assessments in English and math anchored in what it takes to be ready for college and careers. • Leading Educators Evaluating Quality Instructional Products (EQuIP), a collaborative of the ADP Network states, focused on increasing the supply of quality instructional materials aligned to the CCSS. • Working with coalitions in six states in the Coalition Support Network (CSN), to support in-state coalition building and outreach around the CCSS.

7. Overview of the Achieve OER Rubrics : • Open Educational Resources (OER) are resources that contain an open license, allowing educators to share, reuse, remix, etc. • Achieve created a set of rubrics and an online tool to evaluate quality and alignment of OER available at: http://www.achieve.org/oer-rubrics Rubric I. Degree of Alignment to Standards Rubric II. Quality of Explanation of Content Rubric III.Utility of Materials as Tools to Teach Others Rubric IV. Quality of Assessment Rubric V. Degree of Interactivity Rubric VI. Quality of Practice Exercises Rubric VII. Opportunities for Deeper Learning Rubric VIII. Assurance of Accessibility • The rubrics and rating scheme are embedded into OER Commons. http://www.oercommons.org

8. Overview and Objectives of the OER Institute We have been working closely with seven states (CA, IL, LA, MN, NC, WA, WI) through the Achieve OER Institute to: • facilitate discussion on the opportunities, challenges and implications of using OER in CCSS implementation; • assist states in developing action plans to use OER; and • share tools, resources and recent developments in the field of OER.

9. OER Institute Activities and Accomplishments : • Hosted training sessions on the OER rubrics; created forums to rate objects on OER Commons • Led a series of webinars in 2012 on topics related to OER on topics such as the use of open licensing and measures of quality • Met in Chicago in November 2012for cross state sharing and planning discussions • Created a series of training materials • Training videos on each rubric • An “OER Handbook” • A set of presentation slides on the rubrics, ratings and review process • Convened an OER Policy Advisory Group meeting to discuss challenges and possible recommendations for state policymakers

10. State Support for Open Educational Resources: Key Findings from Achieve's OER Institute Three Potential Areas for Cross State Collaboration: • Establishing commonalities in defining quality • Sharing quality, standards-aligned resources • Sharing metadata about quality resources Four Key Findings To Date: • States face a number of common challenges and barriers to implementation, including a lack of knowledge about OER and uncertainty about the quality of resources available online; • Experts from multiple sectors, including standards, curriculum and technology, must work together to use OER successfully in CCSS implementation; • States must develop a common understanding of processes for measuring quality and vetting resources; and • States must assess their technology and capacity needs to implement technology-based innovations.

11. OER in Minnesota • New MN Legislative Language (June 2012) • MN Department of Education to receive $104,00 allocated in FY13 ( a one-time funding ), then $26,000/year for maintenance of education resources cataloged and aligned to MN state standards. • Minnesota Learning Commons (2007-Current) • Public education partners, i.e., MN Department of Education, MN State Colleges & Universities, and the University of MN collaborate to provide access to free relevant online services. Focused on quality it is a collaborative of faculty, staff, and administrators from each partner. Sample projects: • Sample #1: Partnership for Innovative Instruction project in which instructional content will be liberated to “improve instruction, train teachers to create digital content, share resources, and plan for continuous innovation.” • Sample #2: Central Repository to provide shared digital content for K-12 and Higher Education.

12. OER in Minnesota • So what are some things that are going on in-state? The whirl wind tour: • https://mnlearningcommons.us/ • www.mndigitalcatalog.org • http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/mdeprod/groups/educ/documents/basic/051317.pdf • https://sites.google.com/site/innovativeinstruction/projects • http://www.oer.project.mnscu.edu/ • http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2012/UR_CONTENT_383497.html

13. Developments in OER Institute States • California • Engaging leadership at the state level, want to improve access to technology • Illinois • Beginning to pilot ISLE system in August 2013 with OER materials • Louisiana • Developing online District Support Toolbox, communicating through Teacher Leaders • Minnesota • Creating prototype for Minnesota Digital Curriculum Referral Catalog for OER materials • North Carolina • Including vetted OER materials in state Instructional Improvement System (IIS) • Washington • Completed a review of full course and unit-length OER materials • Wisconsin • Will begin development of WISElearn online portal for resources

14. Next Steps : • Developing an explicit effort to more tightly align this effort with EQuIP • Continuing this work through: • convening OER Institute states to discuss challenges and successful policy and implementation strategies for using OER in a blended instructional approach and/or discuss opportunities for cross-state collaboration • visiting OER Institute states to provide state-specific assistance • hosting OER materials session reviews to evaluate and seek out high quality OER materials

15. Questions for the Future • How can states go about sharing resources and data? • What kind of evaluations of resources will take place? Who will be evaluating resources? • Who must be involved at the state and district level to implement plans for using OER? • How will states and districts communicate about OER? • Guiding Questions • How many educators in your state/district/school know about OER? • How many educators in your state/district/school are using OER? • Which stakeholders would you consider high priority target audiences for messaging about OER (teachers, parents, superintendents, curriculum directors, state policymakers, parents, etc)?

16. Thank you! For more information, please visit: http://www.achieve.org/oer-rubrics