Connecting Teachers & Open Education Resources (OER)

The experience of the sudden shift to online, remote or hybrid education in K-12 as a result of the pandemic, led Gates Ventures to ask what the most effective ways to engage teachers with online Communities of Practice (CoP) are. They wanted to explore how, as the world settles into a new normal, engagement with communities of practice could support and improve the quality of teacher engagement with open education resources (OER).

Gates Ventures engaged Learnovate to conduct a custom literature review to uncover what the research says about the best ways to engage teachers with online learning through participation in CoPs and how this engagement could positively impact teacher professional development practice in K-12 education.

The research report, already shared with K-12 teachers and educators who are engaged in the Gates Ventures OER Project community, documents the relevant literature that helps us to really understand the best ways to engage K-12 teachers in CoPs in order to improve their teaching practice.

The follow-up to this literature review is a second piece of custom research to explore how teacher continuous professional development (CPD) can be improved and supported by collaborative learning through CoPs. These reports are expected to be ready for publication to Member Connect in July 2022.