OEP@TWU

In this presentation, the authors start from the importance of improved teacher education during and post-Covid19 pandemic. The Covid19 pandemic continues to exacerbate the lack of qualified teachers. Together with qualified staff, it is clear that relevant and local teaching-learning resources are essential if governments wish to enhance the teaching and learning processes. Solutions to the lack of qualified teachers/educators/ lecturers and to that of localised resources (such as Open Textbooks) are not easily encountered. 
The authors therefore propose a novel community-based approach (Ferreira-Meyers & Dhakulkar, 2021) to tackle this dual challenge by innovative use of technology. Our approach is based on the principles embedded in the Open Science Framework (OSF) and envisions creation of grassroot-level communities of practices via networking of teachers and students. We propose to share a model through which the principle of openness can be put into practice for teacher education. 
The model makes use of different OSF aspects to create a teacher-student community of practice with a peer network of “critical friends”. It offers the opportunity to extend “openness” to teachers and students by fostering sharing, collaboration while also focusing on self-directed learning and constructionist pedagogy.