Track: Engineering Education

Abstract

Finding suitable OERs feels like being in a large pool, trying to find suitable resources, with a small spoon. The complexity of the task is compounded by the scarcity of localized, indigenous and decolonized OERs. The shift to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the complexity of the research question: whether OER-based teaching methods are a panacea to teaching problems, in a digital era. The pandemic has exposed the lack of diversity and variety for suitable choices in the teaching practice. It is, therefore, apparent that there is a need for a teaching process that takes into account the deficiencies of the teaching practice in a digital era, together with the student preferred learning styles, based on a pedagogy driven by Ubuntu principles. This teaching process is based on a progressive assessment strategy that has a direct impact on learner’s performance outcomes. The advent of COVID-19 came with the realization that we have largely overcome the stigma that games are for playing, which is the opposite of working. The landscape of higher education, the cultural environment and the competitive ecosystem is changing rapidly and disruptively. Higher education is rapidly changing, and technology is the catalyst for the change. In the new paradigm, students expect to be able to work, learn and study whenever and wherever they are. Consequently, the appeal for digital game-based learning OERs has become more attractive and commonplace in lecture rooms. The appeal is derived from the unique nature of gaming education and its ability to integrate theory and practice. Gaming has the ability to motivate, capture student interest and facilitate interaction. The research adopts a case study research method to explore and explain an OER-based effective teaching method. The paper presents a comprehensive example that showcase good practices in OER-based effective teaching practice.