Knowledge is not a means to end, it’s a relationship. It’s not extracted – it takes time to build those relationships and create communities. We need to make space and time for this if we really want to learn from one another. We are interconnected, and for better or worse, our actions impact others and ourselves. It affects our perspective, identity, beliefs, and hopefully brings shifts that welcome inclusive, structural changes and the breaking of hegemonic norms.
(Dr Surita Jhangiani)
Open Education Week at UTS kicked off with a packed Zoom room to hear our first guest speaker Dr Surita Jhangiani, Associate Professor of Teaching in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. Surita is an advocate of Open Educational Resources (OER) and the recipient of two Open Educational Resource Champion awards from the University of British Columbia. She is currently involved in projects related to open pedagogy, alternative grading, and belonging in learning and teaching – topics which weave wonderfully into many of the themes in Open Education Week.
Surita shared perspectives on the transformative potential of open educational practices to foster inclusive learning, with a particular focus on how open education can support decolonised and internationalised learning. Some key quotes and highlights from her session are shared below.
Curriculum internationalisation: more than a reading list
I realised that despite all the changes we’d made, some of the students still didn’t see themselves reflected in the course, especially in the content. […] hearing that made me question my assumptions, my approach. It also added that critical lens, and so it was a turning point.
Surita described curriculum internationalisation as a process of integrating global, international, and intercultural perspectives into the curriculum. This means pushing beyond simply incorporating diverse content, which can sometimes feel tokenistic. As well as our reading lists and content sources, she noted the importance of considering our pedagogical approaches and learning outcomes, taking the real-world needs of our students into account.
Helping our students become professionals and global citizens is about much more than diverse content; it means critically engaging with multiple worldviews, questioning whose knowledge is centred, and shifting power dynamics to empower learners from different contexts to become co-creators of knowledge.
Decolonisation as ongoing questioning and co-creation
When we’re thinking about curricula, [let’s] really think about whose knowledge and ways of knowing are given priority. When we’re thinking about decolonising education, it is rooted in connection to place, and part of the process of decolonising education is re-establishing links to community.
Whilst core concepts around decolonising curricula are not new, Surita re-emphasised some important themes such as challenging dominant narratives, questioning whose knowledge is privileged, and how we might re-centre voices that have been marginalised until now. She stressed that true decolonisation requires intentionality, which can include confronting colonising practices in education, reconnecting with community perspectives, and empowering learners from historically marginalised groups to participate in knowledge creation. The goal is to create educational spaces where diverse voices and lived experiences are not just welcomed, but seen as essential to the learning process.
Open up to learners’ insights and experience
This isn’t just about making them feel included. It’s about reshaping the very foundation of our courses […]. Open educational practices encourage students to engage critically with content, collaborate on problem solving and create original works. It encourages creativity, and I’ve seen amazing works that learners put together as students design, remix and reframe content in meaningful ways that require them to critically consider what knowledge and perspective are being shared – who benefits and who does not.
Open educational practices can provide strong foundations for more authentic approaches to internationalisation and decolonisation, as they help to break down traditional geographical, institutional and theoretical boundaries. The collaborative nature of knowledge building with open educational resources opens the door to learners, who can bring their own unique insights and experiences into our learning spaces, shifting power dynamics and resulting in much richer, more inclusive educational practices.
Surita noted that these practices can support learners to connect more meaningfully to real world issues and community needs. Open educational practices encourage us to consider not just theoretical concepts, but the broader implications when theory is translated into practice; they require a deeper understanding of social, political and cultural factors to solve complex issues, preparing learners for an ever-changing world.
Surita closed the session with a quote from Octavia Butler, who “through her writing, challenged gender stereotypes in American fiction, white privilege in her narrative, and racism in her profession”.
All that you touch you Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change.
(Octavia E. Butler)
Her words underline the relational, dynamic nature of things, but also remind us that we have agency to shape the world, as well as being shaped by its events. Open education doesn’t just change curriculum, but has wider impacts that reach far beyond our classrooms.
View the event this blog post was based on (duration: 60 mins):