Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Rosa Moscarella

Embracing the Power of Open Pedagogy

Open Pedagogy:  A Quick Tutorial

Open educational practices (OEP) foster inclusive, collaborative learning in classrooms. These practices use open educational resources (OER) and open teaching methods, which allow materials to be freely shared and adapted. This approach encourages the co-creation of knowledge, where students actively contribute to and shape their learning experiences.  OEP empowers learners to take ownership of their education, collaborate with peers, and engage in real-world problem-solving. Additionally, OEP supports academic transparency and accessibility, ensuring that educational resources are available to all learners.

OEP focuses on equitable participation in the co-creation of knowledge. It helps students see themselves as scholars. Instructors support the student negotiation of ideas as students transform the efforts of their learning into open knowledge resources. 

OEP is learner-generated, which involves ‘opening up’ the process of teaching and learning to empower students to take the lead, solve problems, and work collectively to produce artifacts that they share, discuss, re-configure, and re-deploy. Building relationships where groups of learners work collectively, with reflective learning and peer review is paramount to open pedagogy. Co-constructing knowledge through facilitated and shared reflective practice drives deeper pedagogical reflection and student engagement. 

Image Source:  Serving Social Justice & Transforming Pedagogy 

On multiple university campuses across the United States, Biology faculty offer incredible examples of open pedagogical practices (Cangialosi, 2018; Garcia & Holz, 2020; Wallis & White, 2020; Moorberg, 2020; RIOS Institute, 2025) that situate within the Social Justice Framework of Education.  Joining this group of student-centered, creative, and innovative faculty is Senior Lecturer, Dr. Rosa Moscarella, Department of Biology in the College of Natural Sciences.  For Rosa, open pedagogical practices provide a framework that 

• offer free resources to her students,
• incorporate, intentionally, the work and feedback of her students,
• are co-created with her students.

In Fall 2023, Rosa “resurrected” BIOL 521, Comparative Anatomy, at UMass Amherst after teaching it at a different institution fourteen years prior.  She noted that she quickly needed to make significant changes to the course, as she noticed that students had limited prerequisite knowledge and external demands, such as full-time jobs, that made it difficult for them to complete dissection labs independently.  She pointed out that the required dissection manual was expensive, contained errors, and featured photographs and illustrations that were often difficult to interpret.

Rosa embarked upon a course redesign that integrated the feedback from the MAP Program facilitated by the UMass Center for Teaching and Learning.  Rosa’s MAP recommended that she co-create a dissectional manual with her students that could be published in Open Education Resource repositories.  Additionally, she sought counsel from the UMass Open Education Librarian Theresa Dooley, for funding opportunities through the Open Educational Initiative Grant Awards and access to the Open Books publishing platform that is powered through Pressbooks.  

Rosa’s dissection manual project offers a clear example of open pedagogical practices at work.  Her goals were to 

• reduce the cost of materials for her students
• create a “live” document that could be improved each year through the contributions and critiques of her students
• replace outdated dissection guides that were written thirty years ago and contained errors with an new, current Open Education Resource
• offer the Biology community an Open Education Resource that does not exist.

Additionally, Rosa was committed to co-creating and curating content in multiple modalities, such as videos, photography, and illustrations, to support Multiple Means of Representation within the Universal Design for Learning framework.  She emphasized the importance of narrated videos with accurate captions and written transcripts, and clear photographs with accurate descriptions and alternate text for all lab procedures that are highlighted in the manual.

Rosa explains that Comparative Anatomy is content-rich. It lends itself to engaged laboratories that are supported by clear and concise manuals that utilize multimedia elements to support student learning.  Rosa knew that embarking on the organization and publication of an openly licensed laboratory manual would be challenging.  So, she drew upon the expertise of her students and Teaching Assistants for support.

Rosa encourages STEM faculty to consider the power of open pedagogical practices that result in student engagement and a tangible OER that is co-created with students.  Rosa credits the birth of the BIOL 521 laboratory manual to the feedback that she received from Kirsten Helmer, Director of Programming for Diversity, Inclusion, & Equity, and Senior Lecturer at the Center for Teaching and Learning.  Additionally, she received inspiration from Physics Senior Lecturer Brokk Toggerson who recently facilitated a faculty working group with the UMass Center for Teaching and Learning about OER that included a deep dive into legal considerations and OER platforms. Rosa was inspired by his passion, commitment to student success, and clear explanation of how to get started.  

Rosa stresses that UMass houses incredible collaborative resources that have helped her move toward finalizing this project with intentional steps.  Those resources include the UMass Library and IDEAS. 

Rosa believes that OEP is fun for both students and faculty.  It transforms content-rich courses with active learning strategies and student ownership.  In general, students appreciate the opportunity to publish their work for a wider audience beyond the confines of the classroom.  Rosa cautions that OEP and the publication of OER takes time to create, curate, organize, and publish.  Rosa stresses that basic knowledge of Creative Commons is helpful to get started, and that reaching out to UMass campus experts about Creative Commons and other legal considerations are important steps that should be taken early into the process.

Cangialosi, K. (2018, March 16). Using practices of open pedagogy in my biology courses. Open Pedagogy Notebook. https://openpedagogy.org/course-level/using-practices-of-open-pedagogy-in-my-biology-courses/

CAST (2024). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. Retrieved from https://udlguidelines.cast.org 

Holz, J., & Garcia, M. (2020, October 30). Digital reusable assignments to supplement and support OER adoption and increase student engagement [Video]. Open Pedagogy Notebook. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVrLnWgu8O0

Lambert, S. R. (2018). Changing our (Dis)Course: A Distinctive Social Justice Aligned Definition of Open Education. Journal of Learning for Development, 5(3). https://doi.org/10.56059/jl4d.v5i3.290

Moorberg, C. (2020, November 4). An open annotated bibliography case study [Video]. Open Pedagogy Notebook. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDuSZ5tpnsc 

Program for Open Scholarship and Education. (n.d.). Defining open pedagogy. University of British Columbia. https://pose.open.ubc.ca/open-education/open-pedagogy/defining-open-pedagogy/

RIOS Institute. (n.d.). RIOS: Equity & inclusion in STEM education. QUBES. https://qubeshub.org/community/groups/rios

Wallis, P., & White, J. (2020, November 10). Rapid open adoption: Co-constructing an open, active STEM textbook with students [Video]. Open Pedagogy Notebook. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIyNtH0WmpI