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Adopting a New Practice: Open Source Experiences in the Classroom
Conference proceeding   Open access

Adopting a New Practice: Open Source Experiences in the Classroom

Sally Fincher, Heidi J. C Ellis, Lori Postner and Gregory W Hislop
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) Conference Proceedings
01 Jan 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE56618.2022.9962578
url
https://kar.kent.ac.uk/99028/1/Fincher_Adopting%20a%20New%20Practice.pdfView
Accepted (AM)Open Access (License Unspecified),  Open

Abstract

Classrooms Education Freeware Open source software Public domain Software Teachers
Conference Title: 2022 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) Conference Start Date: 2022, Oct. 8 Conference End Date: 2022, Oct. 11 Conference Location: Uppsala, SwedenThis Research Full Paper describes a case study of educators changing practice as a result of interactions with an open source software community. It examines an NSF-funded initiative designed to expose educators to humanitarian free and open source software (HFOSS) communities and, in turn, to support them in involving their students in these communities as part of their classroom experience. To date, more than 150 faculty from over 120 different institutions have participated in the initiative’s faculty development workshops. In this work, we conducted in-depth interviews with 24 workshop participants. The interviews explored how faculty had adopted HFOSS in the classroom, the hurdles and successes they encountered, and how their teaching had changed, among other questions. Some of the themes we identify in our data – obstacles to adoption, such as a lack of time, and the importance of the institutional context – confirm prior findings in the literature on pedagogical change. However, this work also identifies several additional nuances that have not previously been reported and emphasizes common aspects among educators who successfully adopted a practice.

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