PDA Event: Cultivating Abundance: A Regenerative Vision for Open Pedagogy

Generative AI tools have become the latest accelerant for what some call the ""cheating-industrial complex,"" amplifying cycles of surveillance, quick fixes, and extractive teaching practices in higher education. This moment demands that we pause and ask fundamental questions about the systems we perpetuate. There has never been a more urgent need for the open education movement to slow down, divest from capitalist notions of teaching and learning, and consider problems differently. What if we approached education as we might approach nurturing the land—with care, reciprocity, and a commitment to long-term resilience?

In this talk, I’ll propose a regenerative vision for open pedagogy, one inspired by practices that restore balance, foster abundance, and work with, rather than against, natural systems. Together, we’ll explore how open pedagogy can disrupt wasteful and unethical practices that degrade the learning environment and harm students. By focusing on collaboration, shared resources, and sustainability, we can ""build the soil"" of a thriving educational ecosystem and create the conditions for learning to flourish over time.

Learning Outcomes
Imagine how advocates for open education can promote our values of access, openness, and equity by rethinking our support models for student projects
Generate ideas for how to connect student projects to opportunities for future reuse
Discuss how engaging students and faculty in open pedagogy can change the conversation around the purpose and value of student work 
Reflect on ways the open education movement may be contributing to systems based on extraction, distrust, and surveillance

Presenter Bio
Kyle Denlinger (he/him) serves as the Digital Pedagogy & Open Education Librarian at Wake Forest University's Z. Smith Reynolds Library, where he champions the intersection of digital literacy and open education. Drawing on his background in secondary education and information science, Kyle partners with faculty to design innovative digital projects that emphasize student agency and collaborative learning. His work focuses particularly on digital publishing and the development of open educational resources (OER).

In his role, Kyle helps faculty and students navigate the complexities of digital scholarship while remaining mindful of critical considerations in privacy, accessibility, and intellectual property. He teaches undergraduate information literacy courses and provides specialized research support across academic departments. His research interests explore how digital literacies and open educational practices can transform teaching and learning in higher education.

Kyle holds a Master's in Information Science & Learning Technologies from the University of Missouri and a Bachelor's in Secondary Education from the University of Cincinnati.

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