This piece is part of a series by participants in the Winter 2026 Open Knowledge Fellowship, coordinated by the Mina Rees Library. Fellows will share insight into the process of converting a syllabus to openly-licensed and/or zero-cost resources, as well as their experiences teaching undergraduate courses at CUNY.
Herline A. Honorat is a PhD student in Urban Education at The Graduate Center, with certificates in Africa Studies and Interactive Technology & Pedagogy. Herline is interested in the intersections of history education and computational thinking. Herline holds an MA from New York University in English education and a BA from UConn in English and human rights. She collaborates with educators across New York City Public Schools in her Brooklyn College course to examine how curriculum and pedagogy is discussed when thinking about childhood education.
I was interested in the Open Pedagogy Fellowship because I wanted to build something that my students and I can collaborate on while supporting other teachers interested in similar work. I initially thought that I would not have the capacity to build a website, so I began the work redesigning my course syllabus. This process helped me to rethink what a syllabus can be: a model for ethical research practices, a champion for students who may otherwise struggle to pay for required textbooks, and a document that sets standards for inclusive, safe classroom spaces. With the support of Frans Albarillo at the Brooklyn College Library, I began to create an open syllabus that is simply designed, and includes cited, linked course material that is open and accessible.
Through the various sessions of this fellowship, I learned that there are a variety of places one can find open resources beyond my campus’s library website. Open Textbook Library, OER Commons, and BASE were especially helpful to navigate. Google Scholar, especially, was a great support. In all of my time doing research, I never paid attention to the right-hand links, which often lead to open versions of texts. This discovery allowed me to reconsider readings I’ve taught from the fall and embed multimodal texts directly into the syllabus. I believe that an open syllabus should reflect the diverse ways students engage with knowledge. This fellowship allowed me the time and space to locate and embed videos, podcasts, and digital archives. Engaging in this fellowship reinforced my belief that learning should not be confined to class sessions or limited to a single medium, and it reminded me to be intentional about accessibility.
After a session with Laurie Hurson at the Teaching and Learning Center (TLC), I was reminded that having a course website outside of Brightspace would further support my students. I initially avoided creating a class website because I determined that it would be too much of a “squishy” moment and too technically challenging. However, having dedicated time during and after our sessions pushed me to embrace that discomfort and learn from it. Moving from that unease enabled me to create something meaningful for my students: a space that they can return to during and beyond the semester. As a Graduate Center student, I often revisit materials from courses hosted on Commons, and I wanted to offer that same opportunity to my students. As a result, I made my CUNY Commons course site the focus of my fellowship.
Margaret Miller’s session reminded me that while I enjoy a creative and colorful space, they do not always support all students. From that session, I committed to making my Commons site POUR: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. What brought me particular joy was learning how to create an intuitive class schedule without tables and using Hex Codes to ensure sufficient color contrast. So, while my goal was to support my students, I also gained transferable technical skills for future work.
Overall, I plan to model using the syllabus and navigate the course website on the first day of class. I will show students how to interact with the site, reinforcing that these tools are resources they can always return to.
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