13 Overcoming the fear of sharing

In conversations with educators, I often hear about their fear of sharing. Sharing what happens in their sessions, sharing resources, sharing ideas. The below thoughts were triggered by such recent conversations as I wanted to explore what their words could mean.

Teaching, a solo experience?

Still today, many educators in higher education work on their own in the classroom with their students, behind closed physical or virtual doors. Sometimes they work with doctoral students or demonstrators or technicians. Sometimes they are observed teaching. But regular peer review of teaching in a collegial and developmental way is not the norm, nor is team teaching. What role does cost and workload pressures play in this? Recordings of teaching sessions, about which many educators feel uncomfortable, shed some light into what is happening behind these doors, but out of context they can easily be misinterpreted, and educators may feel judged.

Opening-up classrooms

Digital networked technologies, and Virtual Learning Environments, and even social media platforms are opening up classrooms to some extent. Reflections on teaching will happen in educators’ heads before moving quickly on. Some will keep reflective blogs that they share, but not that many. Do they feel vulnerable? Thornton’s (2010, 167) words may provide some useful insights.  “In describing the difficulties we find in our professional work, we risk feeling ashamed; we can fear that others will criticize or think less well of us if we relate the things of which we are least sure about ourselves.” How often are their experiences, their reflections discussed openly with other educators and with students?  How many missed opportunities have there been for exchange, sharing, and development?

Educators often prepare the resources for their teaching and supporting students themselves. Sometimes (often?) they struggle using somebody else’s resources and also don’t or can’t always easily share the resources they put together with others. Educators use various strategies when working on resources and often recycle and upcycle resources they have used before. They stitch things together, from their own work and bits borrowed from elsewhere, and design something they feel will work for their students (Atenas, et al. 2024). I think the fact that these resources are for their students is important to them. They are tailor-made, or at least claim to be? Why would someone just provide their resources on a plate to somebody else or many others after spending so much time on creating these? What if somebody else just takes the resources and presents them as their own? We are often sceptical and cautious! And are asking ourselves how these would even be useful or relevant to another educator and their students? And what if they are not good enough? If the quality is poor, will I be judged? The fear of saying or doing the wrong thing and being punished or isolated is a strong barrier to sharing

Sharing, start small

How can we overcome our fear of sharing? Definitely start small and with low-stakes actions and activities. Check out the award-winning “We like sharing” initiative brought to us by Dr Bea de los Arcos and TU Delft in the Netherlands and start by using a picture you find there to spice up a resource or even share one, of course! Creating opportunities to collaborate with other educators can help. Creating cultures for collaboration to grow and flourish within and beyond institutions is important, as well as recognising the value of sharing for the “givers”, the “receivers,” the “sharers” and the “sharing backers”. In vibrant communities and networks of and for educators.

Connect and co-create

Palmer (2007, 146) reminds us, “If I want to teach well, it is essential that I explore my inner terrain. But I can get lost in there, practicing self-delusion and running in self-serving circles. So I need the guidance that a community of collegial discourse provides- to say nothing of the support such a community can offer to sustain me in the trials of teaching and the cumulative and collective wisdom about this craft that can be found in every faculty worth its salt.” So community is really vital! We are stronger together, remember (Nerantzi, 2024)? Celebrating together the difference sharing makes for all. And while sharing resources can save educators a lot of time and energy it can do so much more. The co-creative process and the sharing itself can diversify resources and practices, enable educators to work more closely together, establish valuable connections and alliances, set their ideas to travel further, and therefore enrich the student and teaching experiences and be more impactful. And this injects excitement into teaching and supporting students’ learning. We know that educators are motivated to try different things and innovate if they think they can help their students learn. This is often what drives them! Pedagogical ideas may start within an individual but sharing them with others and growing them with others is what makes a real difference (Nerantzi & Thomas, 2019).

Such connected learning and development can happen through open educational practices and when educators become part of professional networks. These bring educators together, boost collaboration, creativity, and innovation as well as sharing for the wider good (Nerantzi et al., 2021). Open education is a way to democratise education and make learning accessible to all (Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012). Open education is activism that has societal impact (Weller, 2010; Czerniewicz & Cronin, 2023)! Sharing is therefore designed into the fabric, into the culture of open education. Open educators are driven by social justice. They want to make a positive contribution to society, and they know that they are stronger and can achieve so much more when they work together in teams, communities, and networks. They take risks, they innovate, and they share! Togetherness is what empowers them! Open educators take others with them! For them, it is no longer about “my students” and “your students” or “their students.” They are all “our students.”

There is no teaching behind closed doors in open education, and peer review of teaching or supporting students learning happens naturally. Open education also fosters teaching with others: educators from the same institution and other institutions in different parts of the world, educators outside academia, often also with students. Open educators co-create, collaborate, and share. The work is often released using Creative Commons Licences that enable the ideas to travel further with their originators. The quality of open outputs, including Open Education Resources (OER), has been questioned. Listen to what Kessels (2016, 88) said, “Perfect is the enemy of good. Free yourself from the tyranny of perfection! Never surrender!!” The truth is that open outputs are peer-reviewed from birth and throughout their lifespan and keep evolving while in use. The beauty of them is that they are dynamic. They can change; they can evolve! Atenas et al. (2024, 6) in their paper discuss the potential OER brings, “In recent years, many have been convinced of the possibilities of improving the quality of teaching with the help of OER. The use of OER allows academics and students to work with resources created by others that can be shared, widening the spectrum of resources and practices available to students and embedding transversal skills (including digital and data literacy, alongside critical thinking, research, teamwork, and global citizenship skills). Moreover, students can be empowered to be critical and collaborative citizens.”

Activities include developing together resources that are from the outset designed for wider reuse, to open courses, open scholarship, and open research that all happen with others, in collaboration with others. Openly and transparently with collegiality. hooks (2000, 93) reminds us that “Cultures of domination rely on the cultivation of fear.”  But what happened to that fear of sharing when we look at the open education movement? It has vanished, evaporated, literally! Open educators stick together, and sharing is at the heart of what they do.

Sharing presents a plethora of opportunities for connection, for critical and creative enrichment, for learning. Not just for students but also for educators. I always say we can’t expect our students to learn if we don’t model learning. Open educators model learning in diverse settings. Freire’s (2011, 72) words are a powerful reminder: “Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.”

How can we nurture invention and reinvention, imagining and reimagining transformative learning through connection and sharing?

Dare to share!

References

Atenas, J., Ebner, M., Ehlers, U.-D., Nascimbeni, F. and Schön, S. 2024. An Introduction to Open Educational Resources and Their Implementation in Higher Education Worldwide. Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society, 4(4). https://doi.org/10.34669/wi.wjds/4.4.3

Czerniewicz, L. and Cronin, C. (Eds.) 2023. Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Futures. Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0363

hooks, b. 2000. All About Love. New York: William Morrow and Co.

Freire, P. 2011. Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: continuum.

Kessels, E. 2016. Failed it! How to turn mistakes into ideas and other advice for successfully screwing up, London: Phaidon press.

Nerantzi, C. 2024. Collective action & collaboration: What is in it for us? Knowledge Equity Network blog, 8 August 2024. https://knowledgeequitynetwork.org/casestudies/collective-action-collaboration-what-is-in-it-for-us/

Nerantzi, C., Chatzidamianos, G., Stathopoulou, H. and Karaouza, E. 2021. Human Relationships in Higher Education: The Power of Collaboration, Creativity and Openness. Journal of Interactive Media in Education. 2021(1), 26. https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.668

Nerantzi, C. and Thomas B. E. 2019. What and who really drives pedagogic innovation? In: Elkington, S., Westwood, D. and Nerantzi, C. (Eds.) Creativity in Student Engagement, Special Issue. Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal. 2(3), 234-260. https://sehej.raise-network.com/raise/article/view/1009

Palmer, P. J. 2007. The courage to teach. Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Thornton, C. 2010. Group and team coaching. The essential guide. London: Routledge.

Veletsianos, G. and Kimmons, R. 2012. Assumptions and challenges of open scholarship. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. 12(4), 166-169. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v13i4.1313

Weller, M. 2010. The battle for open. How openness won and why it doesn’t feel like victory. London: Ubiquity Press.