The Future of Education

A renewable assessment is one that will not be disposed after submission and has a shelf life beyond the instructor’s grading (Dennen & Bong, 2022). It has the potential to be useful to people outside the current classroom environment. One of the many goals of renewable assessments is to turn students from passive consumers of information to active producers of knowledge (Ferreira-Meyers & Dhakulkar, 2021). This not only directly benefits the students as they engage deeply with the content, but also the community in general, as the end product will be shared for the common good in the form of for example, an open educational resource (OER). The use of open educational practice (OEP) by educators is complex, personal, and contextual; it is also continually negotiated and collaboratively evaluated (Cronin, 2019). This study uses the CoI framework to explore the connectedness of the participants that stimulate insight and innovative thinking through critical discourse, in creating OER’s as renewable assessments. The CoI framework is used to search for the essential elements and dynamic constants when designing blended learning environments (Garrison, 2022). The CoI framework sets the conditions for thinking and learning collaboratively, which is essential when creating OER’s. The CoI questionnaire was completed by 1200 final year teacher students enrolled for a generic teaching, learning and assessment module. The module was presented in a self-directed blended learning environment, where students were encouraged to take responsibility of their own learning. The results are in the process of statistical analysis and are still to be finalized