Unleashing the Potential of Culturally Relevant Learning with OER

In 2002, the term Open Educational Resources (OER) emerged from a UNESCO meeting sponsored by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, offering an opportunity to develop freely available, high-quality educational materials that could be edited and shared. Over the next two decades, strategic investments and commitments led to the creation of an OER infrastructure, establishing OER as a recognized field encompassing networks of resources, practices, policies, and research. Consequently, the field could concentrate on producing more accessible materials to facilitate meaningful learning for all young people.

Research tells us that when materials are high-quality and teaching is done well, students learn about language, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and cross-cultural knowledge; they build identity when they learn about societal expectations of themselves and others. Outcomes include enhancing student engagement, improving academic achievement, supporting learning about various subjects, and influencing career interests. However, as states pass legislation prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 schools, some have conflated this academic concept with culturally relevant education. As a result, legislation is being created that removes culturally relevant materials, bans books, and regulates how educators can discuss race, sex, and systemic inequality in the classroom.

OER, known for its flexibility and customizability, can play a significant role in creating culturally relevant materials that reflect the diversity of student backgrounds and perspectives. Collaborating with educators prepared to support diverse learners allows all students to learn, develop critical thinking skills, and gain the student agency essential for deeper learning and success.

Not only is OER positioned to become a greater resource in more K-12 classrooms, but it is also potentially an effective tool for developing culturally relevant materials, particularly given recent challenges. OER can allow educators to provide culturally relevant instructional materials as some states ban or censor certain educational resources, particularly pertaining to stories about LGBTQ+ youth and students of color. In 2023 alone, 3,362 books were banned, restricted, or censored in U.S. public K-12 schools. 42% of the 3,362 books cover topics like youth health and wellbeing, 30% include characters of color or discuss race or racism, and 30% have LGBTQ+ characters or themes.

Despite its potential, a 2023 study indicates that only 28% of teachers are aware of OER and Creative Commons licensing. However, over three-quarters of teachers customize existing and/or create their classroom materials, possibly unaware that they are developing OER. Barriers to implementing OER have been well-documented and include a lack of professional development and ongoing support, adequate technology skills, pedagogical knowledge to integrate OER, legislative support, and the availability of appropriate OER. In addition, permission may be required from department leads, school administrators, or school district policymakers to use different curricular materials that are already approved.

To better understand OER's current practices, and its opportunity to develop materials that are more accessible, effective, and support deeper learning for all young people, we reviewed existing research and information and conducted interviews with researchers, educators, advocates, leaders, and other practitioners. We examine effective pedagogical OER practices, highlight promising practices for sustaining, expanding, and implementing OER in K-12 classrooms, and begin to explore how advancements in other educational technologies can improve the use of OER.

Creating, Curating, and Implementing Culturally Relevant Materials

While research has shown that students who have access to high-quality culturally relevant education can lead to improved student outcomes, educators often lack access to these materials, especially in textbooks. As a result, educators often look to alternative resources not covered in textbooks for information about local issues or in another language. Examples of states that support the creation, curation, and implementation of culturally relevant material include Nebraska, Virginia, and Washington.

Nebraska

When textbooks fail to include contextualized and state-standards-aligned information in Nebraska, educators look for alternative materials. Since 2019 the Nebraska Department of Education has leveraged its Educational Service Units (ESUs) to facilitate OER creation and curation sessions to meet this need.

The ESUs host an annual statewide summer OER Professional Development workshop inviting educators, who are compensated via Title IV-A funds to learn how to create, curate, implement, and advocate for OER in their schools. By hosting the training sessions during the summer, more educators are available to attend, learn about OER, and bring their knowledge back to their schools in the fall. From these sessions, the ESUs collaborated with World Language Content Specialists to develop OER for Nebraska’s English Language Learners, as well as with the Career and Technical Educators to develop over 200 OER aligned with the state standards available on the Nebraska OER Hub.

Virginia

Similar to other states, Virginia educators saw a need to develop materials not readily available in textbooks. In 2020, the Virginia Department of Education launched GoOpenVA, an online platform allowing Virginia educators and schools to access and share teacher-created OER. In addition, grants and professional development were provided to support educators in creating and adapting OER aligned with Virginia’s academic standards. In 2021, the Dr. Carter G. Woodson Collaborative was developed to improve the teaching of African American history and was the collaborative effort of Virginia’s Department of Education specialists, educators, and historians who included resources from 29 museums and other education organizations across the state. (See New America's 2023 case study on how the Woodson Collaborative was developed.)

The Woodson Collaborative features 48 sections of curriculum for teachers that correspond with technical edits to the state of Virginia’s standards and curriculum frameworks in social studies, approved by the Board of Education. In addition, any Virginia Department of Education grants that are appropriated for writing materials must be uploaded to GoOpenVA, and integrated and aligned with updated standards.

Washington

The state of Washington is also investing in developing OER for topics not covered in their textbooks but required in their state standards. In 2018, the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) created ClimeTime through a legislative provision that allows OSPI to allocate state funding for professional development aligned with theNext Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and climate science standards for Washington educators. The legislation also mandates that any educational resources that are developed from these grants must be open and accessible, ADA compliant, and shared on the Washington OER Hub.

ClimeTime has allowed OSPI to partner with local, state, tribal, and higher education institutions to review all of the 146 OER in this group for alignment to the WA learning standards, ADA compliance, support the ability to edit the resource to align to a teacher’s pedagogical practices, and are culturally relatable to Washington’s students. Furthermore, these collaboratives have created OER in other languages and developed tools for educators to weave climate science into other topics, like history and math.

High-Quality and Standards-Aligned Content

Pennsylvania

New academic standards for Science, Technology & Engineering, Environmental Literacy & Sustainability (STEELS) were adopted by the Pennsylvania State Board of Education in 2022. As a result, new STEM curricula were needed as textbooks were outdated and not aligned with the new standards. Given that the Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units (PAIUs) were already creating and curating OER, as well as providing funding and professional development opportunities for school districts on how to use OER in classrooms, they were able to fill this gap.

To develop the new STEM curricula, the PAIU hosts the PA STEM Toolkit working group composed of each PAIU, the PA Teachers Advisory Committee, the PA Department of Education, and the PA Training and Technical Assistance Network. Since 2022, the PA STEM Toolkit has developed 94 OER aligned with the STEEL Standards and includes lessons, assessments, instructional strategies, and professional learning materials for educators, students, and families to share and curate. Educators, students, and families can access these resources to share and curate as well as other free, high-quality OER in subjects ranging from elementary mathematics to arts integration and professional learning.

To engender teacher buy-in, particularly those who were wary of using non-traditional materials, the PAIUs worked with their school districts and 1) communicated that the cost-effective OER were developed by educators, high-quality, aligned to the new STEEL Standards, 2) enacted local policies that allowed educators to use OER from the PA STEM Toolkit, and 3) empowered educators to use more relatable content for their students in the absence of textbook content.

Incentives and Partnerships

Michigan

GoOpenMichigan was in the first cohort of states in the U.S. Department of Education’s #GoOpen initiative in 2016. The state partnered with MI Virtual, a nonprofit that provides online courses for students and educators, to create an OER teacher certification course. The free, online, and self-paced course grants 4 credit hours towards recertification by helping educators explore resources in GoOpenMichigan, identify lesson plans, determine instructional design principles for using OER, and create and share OER.

Started in 2018, the course had very few completions initially. However, enrollment quadrupled in March 2020 when teachers had to teach remotely because the COVID pandemic closed school doors. Educators discovered GoOpenMichigan’s more than 15,000 instructional materials resources, ranging in subjects from Applied Science to Law and Technical Education that they could use in their curriculum. This course remains one of the top three registered and completed educator certification courses for MI Virtual.

To further support educators with OER, school districts can receive up to $20,000 for student support and academic enrichment opportunities via Title IV, Part A. Districts can use these funds to incentivize educators to create and curate OER or observe districts across the country that are using OER. Only a few school districts in Michigan were using Title IV funds for OER creation or implementation before the pandemic prior to 2020. Since then more and more districts have been investing in standards-aligned OER creation and implementation training.

Challenges

Despite an increase in OER practices, challenges remain. ISKME continues to be a core resource for supporting OER implementation through OER Commons, a digital public library for OER, and provides professional development, and tools for K-12 educators, but there is still not widespread adoption. Some of this continues to align with barriers referred to previously such as lack of awareness, understanding, and support. State leaders also discussed the tension between using OER to provide culturally relevant instructional materials while being restricted from discussing certain topics or books in classrooms related to race, sex, and systemic inequalities.

In addition, students with disabilities, particularly those who are hard of hearing, have low or no vision, or have physical disabilities may not have equitable access to OER. Organizations such as CAST have been working to address these inequities with school districts. They created the National Center on Accessible Educational Materials (AEM) with the Office of Special Education Programs at the U.S. Department of Education to work with states and districts for capacity building and sustaining systems that provide accessible OER for students with disabilities. Researchers have also found that allowing educators and students to create personalized profiles catered to a student’s abilities or disabilities made the user experience on OER sites more accessible. These profiles can curate resources that are available in specific assistive technologies and alternative formats that match the student’s abilities.

Younger students and English Language Learners (ELLs) also lack access to OER that is at their English proficiency level or available in another language. An examination of the readability of 200 OER courses from major OER platforms showed that 86% of the courses were considered suitable for only advanced or highest levels of English proficiency.

Opportunities

Despite challenges, OER's capacity to empower educators to create high-quality, standards-aligned, and accessible instructional materials that center diverse voices presents a significant opportunity for continued growth in OER practices. There are platforms, like Open Up Resources and OpenStax that provide OER learning modules for educators, specific open curricula for educators to adapt to their students, and physical open textbooks in various subjects and languages. OpenStax has successfully developed peer-reviewed openly licensed free online college textbooks, and see this as a model for K-12 education as well. Others have noted that OER has become a viable alternative to traditional published materials as states with an ELA or math adoption have their OER-based resources increased from 6% to 14% as a percentage of approved curricula on state adoption lists.

In addition, the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs), like ChatGPT and Gemini, pose opportunities for OER. During our interviews with OER experts, we consistently heard that their states were already investigating how AI can support OER adoption. This includes using AI for curating high-quality OER, updating OER and aligning to specific standards, collecting OER across multiple platforms into one common database, and creating tools or student profiles to enhance the accessibility of OER. Recent research from the United Kingdom Department of Education demonstrates that educators are already using AI to create personalized educational resources for their students, providing their students with the benefits of culturally responsive instructional materials. The National AI Institute for Exceptional Education was recently funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and Institute of Education Sciences to create AI systems that ensure children with speech and language disorders receive timely, effective assistance.

Through partnerships, collaborations, and leveraging resources, there are states and districts who have overcome barriers to implementing OER, serving as examples for other communities. Nebraska, Virginia, Washington, Pennsylvania, and Michigan showcase successful practices, demonstrating that OER can emerge as a viable opportunity for educators to create meaningful learning experiences for diverse students that are aligned with state standards. In addition, the integration of technology positions OER as an opportunity for creating more equitable curricular K-12 practices.