Starting with the working week
A teacher’s week is full: lessons, marking, meetings, messages from parents or students, and the planning that holds it together. Any new approach has to earn its place in that schedule. This article looks at open education from that practical angle, asking what it might do for the teacher’s own work and where it adds effort.
Open education here means using and sharing materials under licenses that allow copying, adapting and redistribution. The effects described are typical rather than guaranteed, and they vary with subject, school and age group.
Preparation time
Planning a lesson from a blank page is slow. Starting from an existing resource can shorten the process, and an openly licensed resource has the extra advantage that it can be edited without asking.
The potential savings come from several places:
- Starting points. A well-built sequence of activities or a set of practice questions can be trimmed to fit.
- Reuse year to year. A teacher who keeps adapted materials can improve them gradually instead of rebuilding each year.
- Fewer permission worries. Knowing a resource is open removes the question of whether copying it is allowed, though the license conditions still have to be followed.
It would be misleading to promise large savings. Finding good material takes time, and checking accuracy and level takes more. Many teachers find that effort pays off only after they have built up a shortlist of reliable sources and some routine for reviewing them. In the first term of trying it, preparation may even take longer. Knowing about repositories and libraries, and having some OER best practices in mind, helps.
Adapting lessons
The right to adapt is perhaps the most distinctive feature for a teacher. Possible adaptations include:
- changing examples so they reflect students’ local context;
- simplifying language for younger or less confident readers;
- adding questions at the points where your own classes usually struggle;
- reordering a unit to match the school’s scheme of work;
- translating or recording a version for a different group.
Careful record keeping helps. Note the source, the license and what you changed, because many licenses require credit and some require that adapted versions be shared under the same terms. If you are unsure what a license allows, check with your school’s guidance or an official source rather than guessing.
Adapted materials are not automatically better. A teacher should still test a lesson and revise it after seeing how pupils respond.
Sharing with colleagues
Teachers have always swapped worksheets in staffrooms. Open licenses make that exchange clearer and let it reach beyond the building.
Within a department, one shared set of adapted materials avoids several slightly different versions. New or part-time staff can pick up a ready-made unit and change it. Between schools, teachers who publish their adaptations may receive suggestions and corrections in return.
Sharing has its own cautions:
- Remove pupils’ names, faces and work unless there is clear permission and school approval.
- Check that any third-party images or text inside your material are also cleared for sharing.
- Be aware that once something is published openly, it is difficult to withdraw.
Informal exchange can improve the overall quality of resources, and it connects to the wider topic of teacher collaboration. It can also reduce the sense of working alone that many teachers describe.
Professional growth
Using and creating open materials develops skills that carry over to other parts of the job.
Judging resources. Regularly deciding whether an item is accurate, suitable and well designed sharpens a teacher’s eye for quality.
Instructional design. Adapting a unit makes you think about objectives, sequence and assessment in more detail than simply following a textbook.
Digital skills. Editing documents, handling file formats and organizing a library of resources are practical skills, and they are useful in many other situations.
Visibility and reflection. Writing down why you made a change, or explaining a lesson for others, prompts reflection that can improve your own teaching.
Connections. Contributing to online groups or open projects can lead to contact with teachers elsewhere. For many, those connections become a source of ideas and support.
Some teachers list contributions to open projects among their professional activities. Whether a particular school or employer values this will depend on local practice.
Where open materials may not help
Being honest about the drawbacks makes the benefits easier to trust.
Workload. If a school expects teachers to create or adapt materials on top of everything else, open education can become one more burden. Time for it needs to be real.
Quality control. There is no guarantee an open resource is accurate or aligned with your curriculum or exams. Everything needs checking.
Alignment. Exam specifications often point to particular topics or approaches. Open materials may not match them closely.
Technology access. If students lack devices or connections, digital material may not be practical without printed copies.
Mixed evidence. There is limited firm evidence that open materials change test scores or reduce stress. Teacher reports are often positive, but they may reflect those who chose to try it.
Support. Some teachers need training or help from a librarian or colleague to get started, and not all schools provide it.
A cautious way to begin
- Choose one unit that you will be teaching soon.
- Search a small number of trusted sources for open items on that topic.
- Check the license of anything you plan to use or change.
- Adapt only what you need and keep a note of changes.
- Teach it, collect brief feedback from students, and revise.
- Share the improved version with a colleague.
Done in this way, open education can become a manageable part of the working week. Its main promise for teachers is not a dramatic transformation, but a bit more control over their materials, a bit more shared effort with colleagues and a steady build-up of their own professional skills.