Open Education: Research and Assessment Strategies

Interest in "open" education has been stimulated by reforms going on in the British primary school. It is also stimulated by a belief that British schools must become more responsive to the people they are intended to serve and less controlled by institutional routines and technological requirements. A two-dimensional scheme is proposed for conceptualizing various kinds of educational environments. The scheme requires that two sets of questions be asked. The first set deals with the child as learner. To what extent does he affect what happens to him? The second set relates to the teacher's contributions in influencing the nature and direction of learning. The point is made that in the current enthusiasm for open education, centrality of the teacher's role is often overlooked. Thus, one critical focus for the evaluation of open education is a focus on teachers. An initial approach to such evaluation might be an interview study of teachers who are working in open settings. Topics discussed would be working environment and the process of open teaching itself. The research focus on children included attempts to look at communication, perception of school, intuition, writing, and quantitative concepts. (CK)