1 Adapting OER to meet learner needs

There are various models found in the literature that describe the process of producing and adapting OER. The model below has been developed by the course team to describe the process of selection, adaptation and use of OER for a learning episode.

This week you will work through some of these steps with an OER that you choose. 

The OER adaptation process
Figure 1
  1. Identify learning need: This is the motivation for searching, linked to goals and development needs. The starting point is always a defined learning need. In your work, this is a teacher’s learning need – that is, what they need to be able to do and know after the learning episode. (If you are working in a school, this learning need should relate to the school development plan that has been developed with the school management committee.)
  2. Search for OER: Finding suitable OER to support development needs.
  3. Select OER: Judging whether the OER are suitable for use and whether they can be adapted for the intended teaching and learning context.
  4. Adapt/refine: Modifying the OER to use in context; refining it after evaluating its use to support learning.
  5. Use in practice: Using the adapted resource in a teaching context.
  6. Evaluate after use: Judging how well the OER has met the learning needs.
  7. Share: Sharing the OER with your local community and wider. The local community might be teacher educators you work with, headteachers in your district, colleagues in another DIET or colleagues in your university. When you share the adapted OER, include notes on how the OER was used and its successes or otherwise in meeting the learning needs of the teachers. 

2 Finding suitable OER