The overarching goal of the Hewlett Foundation’s Open Education strategy is to strengthen every student’s learning experiences by the effective use of open educational resources and practices. To do that, we prioritize developing effective pedagogy and practice along with content, building capacity for education systems to implement OER, and supporting a field that is responsive to diverse educators and learners.
To make these strategic priorities concrete, we focus on three different sets of partners who can benefit from our work in open education. The first two below together account for approximately 75% of our grant dollars.
1. Educators and students: We need to make sure that teachers understand how to take advantage of the flexibility of openly licensed resources and are equipped with the knowledge and tools to customize materials for different students.
2. Education systems: Implementing and sustaining OER depends on policy decisions surrounding several issues, including the adoption and procurement of materials, incentives for educators to use and share materials, and teachers’ access to appropriate professional learning opportunities. Collaborating on these issues with systems leaders is essential to our ability to implement OER within and across schools.
3. OER field: Mindful that momentum in the field is global in nature, we need to nurture a diverse and inclusive ecosystem that shares open content, practices, and resources. Our field-building efforts include lines of work focused on increasing grantee collaboration; promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion; building research capacity; and attracting new funding for open education.