OER Project Grants

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are free to use, adapt, and share in order to better serve all students.

As more districts develop or adapt OER, we have a tremendous opportunity to share resources across districts via our OER Commons Washington Hub, promoting equitable access to standards-aligned, quality instructional materials. This grant opportunity is in support of that goal.

In choosing our grantees for this year, priority consideration was given to projects that integrated content or addressed areas currently lacking in standards-aligned OER. Additionally, consideration was given to projects developing resources that could be delivered remotely or in a blending learning environment.

2024-2025 OER Project Grant Awards

Integrating Media Literacy Education (MLE) into English Classes 

Bellingham Public Schools

This project engages teachers in collaborating to understand new ELA standards, emphasizing media literacy. Bellingham educators will review current instructional materials, integrate media literacy, and explore existing Media Literacy Education resources. Teachers will create ready-to-use lessons and assessments, then practice and evaluate these new curriculum pieces in their classrooms. Afterward, they will meet to evaluate their success and make necessary revisions.  

The goal is to deliver high-quality, rigorous media literacy education that prepares students for a world filled with information. By aligning efforts and building a grade-by-grade sequence of lessons, teachers will progressively develop students' media literacy skills throughout high school. 

Brain Breaks

Bethel School District 

This project engages Music & Health/Fitness educators in developing resources with dynamic, focused attention practices that support brain-aligned instructional design. Teachers will create new practices and revise an existing brain breaks toolkit into a "living toolkit" on the OER hub, providing adaptable, research-based resources to improve student attention. Grounded in the latest research on social-emotional learning, attention, belonging, and kinesthetic engagement, the project promotes engaging, relevant educational experiences. It aligns with Culturally Competent, Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Standards by offering various movement access points and emphasizing student voice and choice, fostering an inclusive environment where all students can thrive. 

Project-based U.S. History Curriculum

Educurious

This project builds upon several years of collaboration between Educurious and Washington State social studies educators supported in part by OSPI. It aims to adapt and implement a year-long high school U.S. History course, originally co-designed in a partnership between Educurious and Federal Way teachers and district leaders, with the expressed purpose of publication to the Washington OER Hub. This way, teachers, schools and districts across the entire state of Washington will have access to high quality PBL curriculum materials for high school U.S. History courses.  

The PBL U.S. History course for high school presents critical issues in an anti-biased way, is interdisciplinary, and aligns with the Washington State Standards for Social Studies. To support the implementation of the U.S. History course on the Washington OER Hub, Educurious will also create a 5-minute asynchronous video to accompany and introduce the course.  

Dual Language Grades 6-8 Unit Development

Kennewick School District

The Kennewick School District Dual Language Program is building integrated units for the middle school program. These units are grounded in standards, integrate language acquisition and following our district's content/language allocation. model. The scope and sequence was developed in 2023-2024 and we are now ready to develop the units to align to the scope and sequence and share via the Washington OER Hub. 

AI Supporting Inclusion & Personalized Learning

Special Education Technology Center - Central Washington University

This project aims to develop modules to help 3rd-12th grade general and special education teachers, pre-service teachers, and paraeducators integrate Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) into their teaching practices. The modules will focus on personalizing and differentiating instruction to create inclusive learning experiences for students with disabilities.  

Using frameworks like UDL and personalized learning, the modules will showcase AI applications across various content areas with examples and case studies. Key topics include AI for differentiated instruction, supporting students with disabilities, addressing cultural bias, and curriculum accessibility.  

The modules will provide ways to access the core curriculum for students with diverse needs and personalize student learning experiences. The AI modules will align with OSPI's guidance on AI and highlight districts who are utilizing AI to support inclusion of students with disabilities and students who are culturally and linguistically diverse. 

Cell Phones, Social Media, & Mental Health

Vancouver Public Schools

Health and English language arts teachers will develop collaborative lessons and units that help address the mental health impact of cell phone and social media use in grades 6, and 8 through 10.  

With the support of the teacher librarian, teachers will partner across two subject areas and two school levels to provide more meaningful and ongoing support for students. This includes time in the fall to work collaboratively after school, time to pilot and revise lessons, and then time to share lessons with colleagues. Participating teachers will also increase their own knowledge through access to online and print professional materials. With the integration of media literacy into the new state ELA standards, this project also will help us to revisit existing units of study and to develop new lessons that better address the social, mental and developmental needs of our students. We will then provide district wide support for the adoption and adaptation of the designed lessons in addition to publishing them on the state OER site.

Global Education and the Sustainable Development Goals

World Affairs Council - Seattle 

Global Education and the Sustainable Development Goals 

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a valuable framework for integrating global education into classrooms. These interdisciplinary goals are adaptable to different grade levels and promote 21st-century skills like critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration. They help address the global competence needs of students in our interconnected world, preparing them for college, careers, and civic life. This project builds on existing World Affairs Council curriculum and will produce high-quality lessons for all 17 SDGs, filling a gap in global education resources. It provides standards-aligned, adaptable curriculum for rural, suburban, and urban schools. Additionally, teachers will have opportunities to join professional development cohorts to effectively implement and contextualize the curriculum. This project will significantly impact teacher instruction and student learning.

Explore grantee efforts on the Washington OER Hub and Washington Hub Highlights.

Past Grant Awards

2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25

Final Grantee Reports

2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23

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