Marco Pevia (he/him)
Undergraduate Student (Senior)
College of Liberal Arts, Spanish and Linguistics
Today we’re proud to feature student, Marco Pevia (he/him), as part of Open Education Week. Marco is a first generation college student and is in his fourth year pursuing degrees in Spanish and Linguistics with a minor in Portuguese. Marco also serves as the Community Moderator for the Texas Coalition for Heritage Spanish (TeCHS). After graduation, Marco plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics and continue researching heritage languages, bilingualism, and sociolinguistics.
During his time at UT, Marco has been a fierce champion for OER. In addition to his work on the Texas Coalition for Heritage Spanish, he has advocated for the use of open educational resources and collaborated with Dr. Jocelly Meiners to create reusable assignments and other openly licensed educational materials.
Student voice is incredibly important to OER initiatives, and the value of Marco’s contributions to the open educational environment at UT cannot be understated. He is a true leader on our campus and we can’t wait to see what he does next.
To learn more about Marco and his work with OER, read his full interview below.
Do you recall how you first became aware of open educational resources (OER) or the open education movement more broadly?
My first interaction with OER was in one of my Heritage Spanish classes: SPN 314J – Writing and Culture in Context for Heritage Learners taught by Dr. Jocelly Meiners. In this course, my classmates and I used OER materials such as articles and videos. Additionally, this was a project-based course where we created a news article, retold a folklore story, and created a poster for an argumentative essay. Dr. Meiners encouraged us to share our projects as an OER for them to serve a larger purpose in the community or other students.
Can you tell us about the OER project you’ve recently been working on?
My project is a continuation of the OER materials my classmates and I created in our SPN 314J course. In my project, I create lesson plans for middle and high school Spanish classes based on the student-created OER materials. I then share those lesson plans as an additional OER so that students and teachers can use them in their classrooms.
Do you feel OER has had an effect on your academic success? If so, how?
Working on these materials has allowed me to engage with the current research and literature regarding OER and Open Pedagogy that can better prepare me to support my future students using OER. Additionally, I recently presented part of this project at the 11th National Symposium on Spanish as a Heritage Language hosted at The University of Texas at San Antonio and Texas A&M University—San Antonio. My project was well received and I am feeling even more motivated to continue doing this work!
Do you feel OER has impacted your success outside the academic environment? If so how?
As a first-gen college student, I connected with the mission of OER and Open Pedagogy very personally. I felt great creating OER materials because I knew that it’s a solution to the question of access to authentic materials for students. I attended a low-income high school and at times felt the effects of not having up to date resources or worrying about how I was going to pay for a textbook in my dual credit course. Promoting and engaging with OER materials can make for an enriching academic experience for both the creators and recipients of the materials.
What would you like to see for the future of OER and/or open education?
I would love to see more faculty to use OER in their classrooms! Moreover, encouraging more faculty and students to become creators and promoters of OER materials.
What would you say to faculty who might be reluctant to incorporate OER into their courses?
Students will always be grateful to avoid paying for a costly textbook. In my experience, engaging in OER also promotes the sharing of knowledge which is one of the many goals of education. Using OER can also make classrooms more equitable for all students in receiving a quality education.
