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Appraising the transformative power of OERs for learner-centred teaching at the University of Mauritius
Gunness, Sandhya

PublishedApril 2012
Type of workconference paper and powerpoint presentation
PeriodicalPages 1-14; 1-31
CountryMauritius, United Kingdom, Oceania

ABSTRACT
Barriers to using OERs include lack of awareness about OERs and intellectual property rights, academic resistance and lack of motivation to adopt technologies in their teaching owing to increasingly heavier teaching and administrative workloads and availability of just-in-time and just-in–context alternatives through search engines. A pre-workshop questionnaire was devised in parallel with an online reflection forum to evaluate to what extent academics at the University of Mauritius are aware of OER sources, how, if at all, they are using Open access material, to what extent they integrate technology in the classroom and how this could transform their teaching practices. Results show that academics access OER courseware, but could do with more training programs. In terms of teaching transformation, academics are willing to “step down” and acknowledge students with more “power” and responsibility for learning but also allowing them to evaluate their learning. This move towards learner-centeredness can be achieved with the right support - professional development programmes in educational technology and encouraging policies at the University of Mauritius.

Keywords learner- centred teaching · Mauritius · Open Educational Resources · teaching practices · transforming education

Published atCambridge
Languageen
RefereedYes
Rightsby/3.0
URLhttp://www.ucel.ac.uk/oer12/abstracts/260.html
Export optionsBibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar



AVAILABLE FILES
Appraising the transformative power of OERs for learner-centred teaching - SandhyaGunnessV2.pdf · 724.3KB264 downloads
ppt Appraising the transformative pwer of OERs for learner-centred teaching at the University of Mauritius.pdf · 11.4MB78 downloads



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