Reconfiguring the pedagogical landscape: Open Distance Learning, Learner-Centred Education and the reframing of teacher education

The international quest to enhance the quality of teaching in low-income countries has seen the promotion of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) and, more recently, Open Educational Resources (OER) as a viable option for the... [ view full abstract ]

The international quest to enhance the quality of teaching in low-income countries has seen the promotion of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) and, more recently, Open Educational Resources (OER) as a viable option for the sustainable delivery of teacher education. This paper explores how learner-centred education (LCE), promoted to enhance educational quality in low-income countries, has been reconfigured within OER environment. This exploratory case study has used a Bernsteinian lens to analyse how pedagogy is classified and framed in the Open Resource for English Language Teaching (ORELT) teacher education modules. This study reveals that OER have encouraged a reconfiguration of LCE, which supports the facilitation of a learner-centric model of teacher education. This ideological shift in the nature of LCE was found to repackage a technicist model of teacher education in a learner-driven design. In the context of teacher education and the development of sustainable pedagogical practices that enhance educational quality in low-income countries, these findings question the effectiveness of such reconfigured notions of LCE and caution the way in which OER has been used to promote LCE.