Teacher Education

This is the fifth report in a series tracking curricula discovery, selection, and adoption processes in U.S. K-12 education. The series has followed the awareness and use of OER materials in classrooms through the global COVID-19 pandemic and its sudden onset of remote learning, and the post-pandemic return to in-person instruction in the classroom. This survey was conducted in April 2024, with a total of 1,377 teachers and 206 administrators participating. The respondents come from 48 states and the District of Columbia. The key takeaways from this year’s survey are: • One third of K-12 teachers are aware of open educational resources (OER), the highest level since we started measuring in 2018-19. A similar percentage of teachers report using OER materials this year as either required or supplemental materials. • The proportion of teachers reporting any type of instruction that wasn't in-person has remained constant in the post-pandemic era, at around 10%. • Most teachers report that they use a required textbook, and these textbooks are offered to students in both print and digital formats. Digital-only offerings are more common in higher grades, while print-only offerings are more common in lower grades. However, more than 50% of teachers across all grades offer textbooks in both formats. • Opinions on print vs. digital materials remain conflicted as the use of digital materials grows. More than half of teachers believe students learn better from print, but an even greater number believe digital materials offer greater flexibility for students.

This manuscript offers a reasoning for and example of integrating Open Educational Resources (OER) and open pedagogy within a teacher education course. We highlight a collaborative partnership between library faculty and education faculty and the decision points and processes we used when redesigning this course to provide an example of adopting OER and our considerations for developing a renewable assignment. The benefits of using OER for K-12 teachers include increasing awareness of and providing opportunities to develop open practices. The transition to a renewable assignment creates a space for teaching candidates to meaningfully contribute to the profession and engage in collaboration across time and space. Teacher education programs provide an ideal space to develop digital literacies and open practices.

Despite a culture of sharing in education, awareness of Open Educational Resources (OER) in teacher education and K-12 education is limited. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to explore graduate-level teacher candidates’ (n = 9) understanding of OER, the value they placed on it, and their self-efficacy in sharing work openly after participating in a renewable assignment. Data collected included a survey, course artifacts, and interviews. Of the nine participants, three openly licensed their work and one shared their resource publicly on OER Commons. Further findings indicate that the participants’ understanding of OER improved and they valued OER as part of their practice in both using and sharing resources. Participants indicated that they lacked teacher self-efficacy about their work for varied reasons. However, after receiving positive student outcomes and feedback from peers, participants were more open to sharing their work publicly. Implications for teacher education are discussed.

The features of open educational resources (OERs) have the potential of enhancing teaching effectiveness and student learning experiences in K-12 education. Encouraging K-12 teachers to use OERs requires an understanding of the factors that have an influence on teachers’ decisions to adopt or use OERs in their teaching. In this regard, this study explored the factors related to how teachers perceived their use of OERs, including the perceived ease of use of OERs, perceived usefulness of OERs, intention to adopt OERs, attitudes, OER self-efficacy, and so on. The relationships of several proposed factors were explored. The participants were teachers from a university in the northeastern United States. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were applied to analyze the collected data. The results indicated that teachers’ perceptions of using OERs were positive overall. Their perceived ease of use and usefulness were two significant predictors of teachers’ adoption of OERs. Other factors that addressed teachers’ willingness and challenges with the use of OER were re-ported and discussed.

Open educational resources (OER) are a cost-effective alternative to traditional textbooks for K-12 teachers to provide differentiated instruction at a much lower cost. However, teachers have to overcome barriers to implement OER in their classrooms, especially if cultural and economic factors are considered. To help each teacher overcome individual barriers, a person-centered approach to understand teachers' barriers of implementing OER is needed yet absent. This research thus filled the gap by conducting a latent class analysis of teachers' profiles in terms of their barriers in using OER. The findings identified three types of teacher profiles and revealed how different profiles impact the effectiveness of OER in teaching and learning. This study provides significant implications for scholars and practitioners helping teachers overcome barriers in implementing OER in K-12 settings.

Open Educational Resources (OER) have the potential to replace commercial learning materials in education. An empirical examination of this potential was conducted, comparing the end-of-year mathematics test results of 12,110 elementary school students clustered within 95 schools from five school districts in the state of Washington in the United States of America. Of this group, 6796 students used open learning materials, and 5314 used commercial educational resources. When three years of test scores were considered, there were no statistically significant differences in the exam scores of students who used open versus commercial curriculum materials. The lack of statistical significance may have practical significance, demonstrating that OER can replace conventional materials without impacting student performance, while potentially reducing costs and allowing for local modification.