Freedom Learning Group has partnered with Instructure to launch "Mission: OER," an innovative program that deploys U.S. military spouses to scale development of high quality digital OER courseware, based on industry best practices, published under an open license, and available for educators to use, repurpose, and share directly from Instructure's Canvas Learning Management Platform.
In 2020, FLG will launch OER development efforts in high demand and job growth disciplines in STEM, Computer Science, Business, Accounting, and Finance through several instructional design internship cohorts. While in the internships, military spouse professionals - often unemployed due to constant duty station changes - will reapply their industry experience and turn to educational content development. Through the program nurses, scientists, engineers, attorneys, cybersecurity analysts, and data science experts will author comprehensive OER courses that include instructional content, assignments, discussions, rubrics, question banks, and other instructional resources.
"Open Education supports student success by supplying content that is free, equitable and accessible," said Tara Gunther, VP of Partnerships at Instructure. "Our partnership with Freedom Learning Group will give Canvas users access to high quality content in a variety of subjects that is readily available and customizable for educators."
Instructure's mission is to help people grow from the first day of school to the last day of work. It's Canvas Learning Management Platform, used by K-12 and higher education institutions, has become the most widely adopted LMS in North America, benefiting 30 million students and teachers globally across 70 countries. Canvas helps teachers build course curricula, allows the students to learn and practice concepts, and then assess student mastery of those concepts throughout the year.
FLG's internship program also takes aim at continued employment for its graduates. After graduating its first cohort earlier in 2019, FLG has hired all 8 military spouse interns for follow-on content projects, gaining a large win for employment outcomes with a 100% intern to employment conversion.
"As a biochemist and technical writer, being unable to find work in my field and being unemployed overseas with a master's degree has been a sobering consequence of being a military spouse," said Mariah Covington, a graduate of the program's first cohort. "FLG has finally created a great solution. I'm working in my field at FLG, earning a competitive income, and contributing to the education industry while continuing my professional development at multiple levels."
As a veteran-owned and military-spouse-operated organization, FLG is dedicated to providing high-quality instructional design services to its clients while contributing to global open educational resource (OER) initiatives. "This program is a high-impact combo-punch furthering two FLG goals: increasing military spouse employment opportunities and growing the pool of high-quality open educational resources," said FLG Cofounder and CEO Nathan Ecelbarger. "These incredible military spouses will work directly with our staff over 16 weeks and learn the art and science of writing quality educational content, developing OER for the global benefit of students and faculty. It's highly scalable, and we're thrilled to be partnering with Instructure on this incredible program."
About Freedom Learning Group
Freedom Learning Group, LLC (FLG) was founded on the unprecedented mission to provide career opportunities to underemployed Military Spouses, Veterans, and their family members, empowering them to sustain relevance in their respective fields. FLG specializes in educational content development, assessment writing, accessibility compliance, ADA/508 accessibility compliance, accuracy review, high-quality education training solutions, and organizational and strategy development. Visit FreedomLearningGroup.com to learn more.
