Ever since open educational resources (OER) were discussed in the early years of the 21th century for the first time, the discourse mainly focuses on digital artifacts and their use in learning environments (Deimann, 2012; BMBF, 2015). However, the biggest challenge about OER is not (only) their use or the practices of sharing per se (see Panke & Seufert, 2013), but especially the question how teacher’s beliefs with regard to ICT, open learning environments and collaborative learning scenarios can be developed (Ertmer et al., 2012; Kopcha 2012; Arcos, 2014). To apply OER-related practices in the sense of Peters (o.J.) to teacher education as well, it is necessary to look deeper into (educational) settings and the design of learning environments in teacher education. Consequently the research and practice-oriented question is, how awareness for open educational practices can be raised teacher preparation programs (Beetham & Sharpe, 2013).

To answer this question from a theoretical, empirical, and practical point of view we implemented so- called "OERlabs" in teacher preparation programs at two universities in Germany. These “OERlabs” are funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF). We understand them as open learning environments, which provide a general approach to promote OER in teacher education and the overall development of open educational practices in education. Within these OERlabs, students and teachers will work together on OER and current phenomena of ICT in teaching and learning. The labs act as a metaphor for participatory learning and designing, where students interact in a model way and reflect about current and later teaching challenges for OER in schools (Erdsiek-Rave & John-Ohnesorg, 2015).

Productive activities related to media education, and ‘doing’ in the interplay of school and university are essential for our project. In this way, the OERlabs primarily support teacher education, in which OER as well as the sharing and remix culture of OER come alive. While in the past media-pedagogical peer education processes have been primarily implemented among students in schools, we want to reflect these forms of education for OER at university and transfer such learning and educational scenarios to higher and teacher education. One way to achieve this goal is to connect research and teaching. Therefore the OERlabs are directly linked to current issues in school and policy discussions at both universities.

In addition to the practice-oriented OERlabs we set up OER research labs to focus on research questions inherent to the student’s point of view. This also may foster research-based learning at our universities. In the related OER research labs students are going to answer research questions like: How do action-oriented learning formats help to develop reflexive views of OER among students? How does the remix culture affect teacher education? Which barriers prohibit collaboration practices between teachers working on/with OER? 

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