Common competencies for getting started with Open Educational Resources

Learn how district leaders in Hollister R-V Public Schools, a rural district in Missouri, focus on building teacher competencies around OER understanding and use as a key part of professional development.

In Hollister R-V Public School District, district leaders wanted teachers to master the competencies of defining Open Educational Resources (OER) and using OER in their classrooms. In order to do that, they focused on supporting four very specific skills pertaining to OER:

• 1) Understanding the basics of OER, including:
  • What OER are, and what they are not
  • How to understand and use Creative Commons licenses

• 2) Finding and vetting OER content, including:
  • Identifying where and how to find OER
  • Identifying the quality and rigor of these resources

• 3) Creating and curating lessons and units:
  • Adding
  • Building
  • Remixing

• 4) Publishing teacher content as OER