As a perfect last episode of the 2025 OEGlobal Voices podcast, we are delighted to share an inside look at the workings and impact of the Open For Anti-Racism program (OFAR) You will hear in the voices of Laura Dunn and Jamie Thomas how this has succeeded as a collaborative effort to increase the integrations of open educational practices and pedagogy for faculty to make their classes ever more accessible and responsive to the learning needs of students in community colleges across the state of California.

The OFAR program not only includes the professional development through course materials facilitated by the project coaches, but then how it is put into action where each participant develops an Action Plan that is carried out in courses the teach the semester following. OFAR truly is the kind of professional development that goes far beyond resources and training, but supporting changes in pedagogical strategy. And this is accomplished through a distributed cohort model.

Listen closely in the conversation how Laura and Jamie both refer to “students”, not only the learners ultimately in community colleges courses, but often they refer to the “students” as the faculty participants themselves. You will understand why there has been interest in this program from other educators in the US plus Canada as well. And you will hear of the future plans to publish and share an OFAR “Toolkit”.

In the OEGlobal Voices podcast studio with (left to right) guests Laura Dunn, Jamie Thomas, and host Alan Levine.

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In This Episode

FYI: For the sake of experimentation and the spirit of transparency, this set of show notes alone was generated by the AI “Underlord” in the Descript editor we use to produce OEGlobal Voices.

OFAR and Open Pedagogy: Bridging Equity and Education

Join host Alan Levine in an enlightening conversation with Laura Dunn and Jamie Thomas, key figures in the Open for Anti-Racism (OFAR) program. This episode delves into how OFAR empowers community college faculty to incorporate open educational resources (OER) and open pedagogy in their teaching. With personal anecdotes and professional insights, the guests discuss the transformative impact of culturally responsive strategies and community collaborations. Highlights include real-world examples of innovative course projects and the challenges and successes of implementing anti-racist teaching practices. This episode emphasizes the interconnectedness of educational communities and the ongoing efforts to make learning inclusive and accessible for all.

  • 00:00 Intro Music and Selected Quotes
  • 01:46 Welcome to OEGlobal Voices Podcast
  • 02:07 Meet the Guests
  • 02:36 Understanding the Open for Anti-Racism (OFAR) Program
  • 06:50 Personal Backgrounds of Laura and Jamie
  • 11:47 The Genesis of OFAR
  • 16:16 Implementing OFAR in Community Colleges
  • 22:18 Challenges and Successes of OFAR
  • 25:19 Community and Collaboration in OFAR
  • 54:40 Future Directions and Toolkit Development
  • 58:49 Closing Remarks and Personal Insights

(end of AI generated show notes)

Additional Links and Quotes for Episode 94

So OFAR steps in then as a really actionable professional development program that helps faculty harness the power of OER and open pedagogy in their classrooms and in their teaching so that their teaching can become more accessible, regardless of student backgrounds. Students are then invited to bring their quote unquote whole selves. We say that a lot, in colleges and universities, but do we really mean it?

But within OFAR we’re really looking for ways and strategies to help faculty bring their students– the whole student– into the classroom. Community colleges across the state of California and OFAR has had cohorts and teams from these colleges over the past six years now who are learning how to apply OER and open pedagogy to their teaching.

Laura Dunn

One of the things we talk about with folks as we also have them connect with past participants through say a live webinar so that they can learn from other folks who’ve gone through this journey… we can try to help them be as adaptable as possible to whatever course they might end up getting assigned to at the last minute. Or, the particulars of who their students are and what their students are interested most in learning. And sometimes that connects really well with this idea of wanting to localize, say, a Biology curriculum or a History curriculum or a Cosmetology curriculum so that what is learned in the class also has immediate relevance to the neighborhood environment where our students are circulating and possibly going to serve new clients or stand up programs of their own.

Jamie Thomas

Our open licensed music for this episode is a track called  Everyone Knows It by Xennial that is shared under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. license. Like most of our podcast music, it was found at the Free Music Archive (see our full FMA playlist).