This document discusses using open educational resources (OER) in adult education classrooms. It outlines key characteristics of adult learners and courses, which include goal-oriented learners with varied backgrounds and goals. It also lists benefits and challenges of using OER, such as increased access and variety versus difficulties finding and adopting appropriate resources. In conclusion, while adopting OER takes time, the benefits to students outweigh the challenges, and OER allows for worldwide collaboration between educators that could transform teaching and content creation.

1. USING OER IN THE
ADULT EDUCATION
CLASSROOM
Created for OER 101, a course offering from the Washington State
Board of Career and Technical Colleges
By Patricia Eamon

2. Some key characteristics of Adult Education
students and courses
Adult learners:
◦ Are often highly goal-oriented.
◦ Bring a multitude of real-world skills and
experiences to their work.
◦ Learn best when presented with highly
contextualized content.
◦ Learn best when academic work is relevant to
their experiences and goals.
◦ May have had negative learning experiences in
the past or have developed negative self-
perceptions about their intelligence or ability.
The adult education classroom often combines
students who are pursuing widely varying academic
and career goals:
◦ GED
◦ High School +
◦ English Language Learning
◦ College skills development
◦ Career/Technical education/training

3. Benefits of using Open Educational Resources in the
Adult Education classroom:
◦ Equity/Access: Students do not have to purchase expensive textbooks.
◦ Variety: I am able to offer students a wider variety of educational content, not being restricted to using one or two textbooks.
◦ Quality: OER helps me to offer resources from educators who are interested in educational equity/access, best practices, and
collaboration.
◦ Relevance: Some Open Educational Resources can be adapted or edited by myself or other users, increasing their timeliness
and relevance.
◦ Critical Thinking/Collaboration: Students may be invited to participate in innovating upon, expanding, or otherwise altering
open educational resources, activities that encourage critical thinking and collaboration.

4. Challenges when using Open Educational Resources
in the Adult Education classroom:
◦ Locating Appropriate Resources: It can be difficult/time-consuming to find resources that are appropriate to the multi-
level/multi-goal courses I teach.
◦ Adoption/Attribution: It can be difficult/time-consuming to determine how to present and correctly attribute resources.
◦ Technology: Some resources are in formats/on platforms that are difficult to integrate into the formats/platforms I use when
teaching.
◦ Quality: Not all open education resources are created equal, and without the assurance provided by a formal review and editing
process, some resources may include inaccuracies.
◦ Maintenance of Resources/Sites: Some OER repositories have broken or corrupted links and are not continually monitored for
these, making the process of finding good resources somewhat more difficult.

5. In summation:
◦ The potential of OER will take some time to fully realize, as educators learn how to locate and integrate OER into their course
and as the number of resources in various disciplines and the sites that offer them expand.
◦ The benefits to students in terms of access, relevance, quality, and collaboration outweigh the challenges of finding and
adopting resources.
◦ OER presents the possibility of world-wide collaboration between educators, researchers, writers, and students, which will in
time (hopefully) mean that more educators are situating their own teaching, research, and content creation in a more diverse,
interconnected, and global context.
◦ The effects of this greater interconnectedness and diversity on disciplinary assumptions and gatekeeping could be
extraordinary.