STeM Session Handout
The Open programme and Resource Bank on Interactive Teaching (ORBIT) Project
Bjoern Hassler, Sara Hennessy, Teresa Connolly and Caroline Jestaz
What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?
- Teaching and learning materials that are freely accessible online for everyone to use, whether
you are an instructor, student or self-learner.
- OER have Creative Commons (or similar open) licences which enable them to be (re)used and
adapted with the permission of their creator(s).
Examples of OER:
Full courses, course modules, syllabi, lectures, homework assignments, quizzes, lab and classroom activities, pedagogical materials, games, simulations, and many more resources contained in digital media collections from around the world such as:
- MIT who have shared over 2,000 of their courses at: http://ocw.mit.edu
- The Open University has shared 5% of its catalogue at: http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/
- JISC has an OER Toolkit at: https://openeducationalresources.pbworks.com
- Curriki is sharing K12 resources at: http://www.curriki.org/
- The Open High School Utah are the first secondary school to share their curriculum as OER at: http://www.openhighschool.org/
- Oxford University have a collection of open podcasts at: http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/open? sort_by=name&sort_order=ASC&items_per_page=All
What is ORBIT?
- ORBIT is a collaborative project aimed at using and sharing OER with a focus on interactive teaching of STeM subjects in primary and secondary education.
- A Resource Bank to collate STeM OER for teachers, training schools and others.
- An open course book with selected OER arranged under pedagogical themes for different year groups in primary and secondary education
Who is ORBIT for?
Classroom teachers/Subject specialists/Heads of departments/Initial teacher education. Training schools/Teacher mentors/CPD coordinators.
You can get involved by:
- Sharing resources you already have.
- Developing with us the resources you need.
- Creating/taking part in the digital open book.
Why share your resources with us?
- To improve the quality and accessibility of teacher education and classroom resources.
- To create tools to enhance your own teaching.
- To showcase the Faculty expertise and leadership in ITE.
- To provide support to educators and student teachers outside Cambridge University, including colleagues in schools.
What resources can you share?
- Ideas for interactive activities or pedagogical approaches (such as using manipulatives in an
activity aimed at developing understanding of arithmetic, a plan for a scientific investigation...)
- Classroom resources (such as lesson plans, presentations/IWB flipcharts, card sorts,
GeoGebra files...)
- Teacher education resources (such as session outlines, class / group discussion prompts...)
To contact us: orbit@educ.cam.ac.uk
