Welcome to the Santa Maria Open-Source Learning Academy (SMOSLA), a pilot project of the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District. On this page you can read about the student experience, our educational philosophy, and how to enroll in future cohorts. For more information, please email Dr. David Preston at dpreston@smjuhsd.org.
THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE
In March 2020, school campuses all over the country closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Even though campuses closed, school - and learning - went on. Open-Source Learning Networks in Santa Maria continued uninterrupted:
- All of the information students needed continued to appear on the same website they had used with their teacher all year.
- Students could meet online with their teacher and each other during every school day.
- Student could watch recordings of the online meetings on their own schedule if they were not able to attend the meetings at scheduled times.
- Students continued to post their work on the blogs they created during the first week of school back in August 2019.
This
year was unlike any other, from the beginning of the year
everything was thrown off when I attended my first day of class. We were
given the opportunity to choose our own style of learning and we
decided to try this new way of learning called "open-source learning."
Meaning we wouldn't read out of textbooks but instead we created a blog
online and wrote about different topics, novels we read and express
ourselves through an online blog. This was so different compared to any
other class I had previously since I was always used to learning out of
textbook... using my computer all the time was a different style of
leaning for me. Now as the school year comes to an end what I found most
meaningful was the technique to adapt to new and different situations
and making new connections through the class.
This fall, students will be learning virtually. Students in Dr. Preston's English 2/H & English 3 courses will continue working as Open-Source Learning Networks. And here, on this blog, everyone in our extended learning community is invited to learn and share ideas with us as we navigate through the pandemic and beyond.
This year we will be completely virtual and student-centered. In the sections that follow, you'll learn more about Open-Source Learning and how you can participate.
OPEN-SOURCE LEARNING: OUR EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY
The experience that Deanna describes is typical of Open-Source Learning. Open-Source Learning is an educational practice that allows students to use the internet, social media, and interdisciplinary inquiry to create and manage their own learning experiences that can be shared online with everyone.
Santa Maria Joint Union High School District teacher Dr. David Preston developed Open-Source Learning as a way to expand the immediate value of learning for students in his classroom-based English courses. Dr. Preston has shared Open-Source Learning as a resource for students and teachers at SMHS, PVS, and RHS since 2006. Previously he taught at UCLA and James Monroe High School in Los Angeles.
Open-Source Learning is active and empowering. Students co-create their own individual learning program through the core curriculum. They make meaningful connections with information and other people around the world, and they build websites and tools to share what they learn.
The results depend on each individual student. Open-Source Learning isn't something we have to do, it's something we get to do. Open-Source Learning comes with built-in accountability. Unlike the traditional classroom, there is no back row on the internet where students can slink down and act invisible. There is no reason to hide your phone behind a textbook; your phone (or your tablet, or your laptop/desktop) is the textbook.
More importantly, everything you learn is connected - not just online, but to you. Academic subjects become more interesting and valuable when they are relevant to your interests. Physics is more fun when you're applying it to your love of skateboarding. Biology, language, literature, poetry, mathematical probability, and just about everything else becomes fascinating when you're curious about love. And, when you curate what you learn online, you create a digital footprint - this is the positive, interesting, successful version of you that people see when you want them to.
It's a cliché to say that "the sky is the limit," but in Open-Source Learning this is literally true. Students end each academic year by teaching us what they've learned. The topics are as individual and interesting as the students themselves, and the only limits are those of imagination. One taught a class in Yosemite. Another learned to fly a plane.
Open-Source Learning is personal. We are human beings first. We honor the fact that students have lives - family obligations, interests, sources of pressure - outside the traditional curriculum. We also know that we learn through mistakes, and that being online means sharing our learning and our mistakes. We recognize that each member of our learning community may experience life's highs, lows, and traumas more intensely right now as we navigate our way through a global crisis.
For these reasons, we actively care about each other with kindness, empathy, and compassion. We are a community. We learn to understand and express our needs, we listen to each other, and we respond accordingly. Each of us will have great days, and we will have "off" days, and we will learn from all of it by staying in connection with each other.
Our graduates demonstrate the qualities that global citizens need to thrive in an uncertain, complex future:
- Mental Fitness (understanding our own minds: our memory, our ability to focus, & our experience of emotion)
- Physical Fitness (understanding practices of rest, exercise, & nutrition that allow us to be our healthiest, best selves)
- Civic Fitness (understanding society's institutions such as banking, taxation, & government so that we can actively engage)
- Spiritual Fitness (understanding nature and belief systems as ways people make sense of the world & being part of something larger than themselves)
- Technical Fitness (understanding the use of tools, including the internet and digital platforms / applications)
We will also have a series of live webinars from content experts in various fields. For starters:
- A Harvard professor who specializes in learning languages
- A former UFC fighter & Brazilian jiu-jitsu world champion who trains professional athletes, Hollywood stars, and military personnel
- Two of the world's foremost experts on virtual community and creative content online
- A CUNY professor who specializes in education, social justice, and served as President Obama's nominee to the National Humanities Council
Open-Source Learning is online. The internet is so much more than a toy or a tool. It has become the nervous system of our economy, our democracy, and our way of life. If you are not connected, you are missing out on a significant source of information and opportunity. If you are not creating your own identity and telling your own story online, someone else is doing it for you. If you are not using your devices with purposeful intention, they are using you.
Today's students need to know how to navigate in this environment. Open-Source Learning helps student learn internet security and digital culture, including ways of developing business and social relationships. Each Open-Source Learning student develops an internet presence and an online community that offers support, critique, and mentorship from content experts. Open-Source Learning also helps learners build the structure, boundaries, and routines that supports their resilience and success.
NEXT STEPS
Once upon a time, students would arrive for the first day of school and report period-by-period to the rooms listed on their programs.
Dr. Preston would greet students on the first day of school by:
- Acknowledging that everyone in high school has heard first-day presentations before;
- Offering the traditional approach as a choice;
- Presenting Open-Source Learning as a choice;
- Inviting students to offer their own suggestions for how the course should run;
- Explaining consensus decision-making and the importance of shared purpose; and
- Leaving the room so that students could discuss their options and come to a decision.
This year is different. Everyone is online, and we all have a unique opportunity to co-create our experience. Instead of meeting in a classroom by chance, you have the power to join an Open-Source Learning Network by choice.
You are welcome to get started with what you see here or elsewhere online. If you want more guidance or support, please email dpreston@smjuhsd.org to schedule a conversation with Dr. Preston. If you are a student enrolled in one of Dr. Preston's courses, you will have an individual online meeting (your family is welcome to attend) in which we will explore what you want to learn and what you hope to achieve this year. You will create agreements that outline the scope of your learning plan and your participating as a member of the SMOSLA network. Then you and Dr. Preston will begin designing your plan, and you will create a website where you will share what you learn.
This part of your education -- your active learning -- is a voluntary process. It will require commitment, trust, and decisive action that help us all understand each other's thinking.
Onward!
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