Open Educational Resources (OER) in Lebanon: How a nonprofit organization supports access to education with and for teachers

• In Event: Exploring teachers' experiences in challenging educational contexts

Proposal

Research Question
This study seeks to understand how teachers who are engaged with open educational resources (OER) in Lebanon view their role in localizing and using these materials and their potential to support learners.

Background and Framework
Beyond the technology of online courses and digital textbooks, OER are intended to democratize education (Hollich, 2022). However, there is a lack of research on how localized OER are created and used in low- and middle-income countries (Wolfenden and Adinolfi, 2019; Buckler, Perryman, Seal, and Musafir, 2014). Connectivity, content, and capacity are important considerations for developing a digital society, but they need to be redefined with and for teachers to better support them in different circumstances. Epistemic injustice is caused by this lack of understanding of how all educators use OER and participate in the digital society to meet the needs and goals of their students, for particular knowers are not valued as knowers (Pohlhaus, 2017). Valuing the knowledge of educators in low- and middle- income countries will expand the digital education community and its understanding of OER’s capacity to support teachers in meeting the needs of students in different contexts.

This presentation will share data and findings about how a grassroots nonprofit organization’s embrace of OER supported teachers and students in Lebanon. Lebanese Alternative Learning (LAL) is a nonprofit in Beirut, Lebanon, that collaborated with teachers to build Tabshoura, a digital learning platform that houses content aligned with the Lebanese curriculum for K-9 students.

Research Design
I collaborated with LAL to conduct participatory research to understand the teacher’s experience when they engage with Tabshoura. The teachers who participated in this study were mostly from education centers, or schools created as substitutes to overcrowded and underfunded formal public schools, for refugee students.

The design uses photovoice to center the teachers’ experiences with Tabshoura through the submission of a photo and caption in response to a prompt. Interviews and classroom observations are then used to expand understanding of the diverse experiences of teachers during an economic and refugee crisis in Lebanon.

I used emergent analytical coding to capture how the teachers experience the different dimensions of engagement with OER. By listing what is featured in the photos and captions separately and together I can see what features of Tabshoura that the teachers highlight and in relation to what aspects of teaching.

Results
This study expands the social inclusion model designed by Arinto, Hodgkinson-Williams, and Trotter (2017) to show how access to localized OER provides teachers with more opportunities to build and direct a responsive digital learning environment that supports and motivates students—and even parents—to take control of their own learning. The Lebanese teachers in this study are navigating decreasing stability in schools and navigating a student population with increasing gaps in their education. Through Tabshoura, teachers have a foundation of reliable resources connected to the classroom objectives, engaging tools for students who have experienced trauma, and the flexibility to adapt resources and create an environment of learning for all their students. Teachers have incorporated their knowledge into Tabshoura to customize the learning experience and to reimagine the key components of an inclusive digital society:

• Connectivity: Teachers used Tabshoura to transform the classroom and the structure of the school day. Tabshoura is available on mobile devices to support alternative schedules for continued and consistent learning inside and outside of the school building.
• Content: Teachers trusted the content on Tabshoura, allowing them more time to focus on adapting the curriculum with personalized lesson plans based on students’ progress on Tabshoura.
• Capacity: Teachers, students, and parents built their digital capacity with the support of LAL. Teachers have more time and creativity then to use Tabshoura for student-centered pedagogical approaches that develop students’ capacity for independent learning and teachers’ own capacity to meet the students’ needs and goals.

The teachers in this project also highlighted that the individualized approach deepened their relationships with the students and their parents. Students can learn at their own pace and repeat lessons as needed at home with the use of mobile phones to access Tabshoura. Since schooling is no longer limited to the building, parents are also more aware and connected to their children’s education that even their own learning was enhanced. Teachers may have adopted Tabshoura initially as a technologic response to navigate education during COVID-19, but they have now continued to use OER to build community among students and parents. Teachers use OER to help introduce lessons and engage students, but they value how these digital resources support building relationships to bridge the gaps in students’ education.

Conclusion
LAL’s Tabshoura showcases how and why OER can support access to education, which is critical to fuller participation in a digital society. LAL uses OER to work with and for teachers by incorporating teachers’ knowledge in the development of Tabshoura and in its continued support of teachers adapting and using Tabshoura as it best fits their students. Tabshoura provides reliable and relevant content so that teachers are able to capitalize on the flexibility of OER to problem solve issues that are particular to their ongoing unstable circumstances while still maintaining the necessary connectivity among students and even parents. OER may facilitate digital education, but they also facilitate a digital society that supports teachers’ capacity to create quality education that centers on meeting students where they are physically and academically. LAL and Tabshoura provide an example of how OER can facilitate not just a digital learning space but a society that supports all students.

Author

• Bethany Eldridge, University of Michigan- School of Education