Open arched doorway, winding path through green hills.

Human-centered learning design for real life.

The Open Practice Academy

The Open Practice Academy helps people and organizations design clearer, more caring, more sustainable ways to teach, document, share, and support knowledge.

Book a Coffee Chat

Work With TOPA

Woman writing at desk, focused on professional development

Now Planning

Fall 2026 Partnerships

Fall professional learning and implementation support is now open for early planning.

Choose the path that fits what your team needs most: flexible Support Hours, a Custom Learning & Support pathway, or a focused workshop, talk, webinar, or asynchronous learning resource.

Fall calendars fill quickly, especially for professional development days, faculty learning communities, grant-funded initiatives, and semester launch support.

Support Hours

Custom Learning

Workshops & Materials

Who This Is For

Educators and Learning Leaders

Faculty, K-12 educators, administrators, and program leaders designing learning experiences that are accessible, sustainable, and grounded in real human capacity.

Libraries and Open Education Teams

Librarians, OER advocates, instructional support teams, and campus partners who are building open, affordable, and learner-centered education practices.

Designers, Technologists, and Facilitators

Instructional designers, learning technologists, trainers, and facilitators who are integrating open education, accessibility, and multimodal learning into their work.

Nonprofits and Community Learning Spaces

Instructional designers, learning technologists, trainers, and facilitators who are integrating open education, accessibility, and multimodal learning into their work.

Open Practice applies across K--12, higher education, libraries, nonprofits, community learning spaces, and mission-driven organizations.

Can I Use Professional Development, Grant, or Institutional Funds?

In many cases, yes. Most institutions have set-aside funds for professional development. We provide the documentation you need to demonstrate value and impact to your department head or dean.

Support may be appropriate for:

Professional development funds
OER grant funds
Teaching innovation funds
Fellowship funds

Departmental learning budgets
Library or teaching and learning center programming funds
Project implementation funds
Institutional training funds

Documentation is available to support funding requests.

To help with departmental, grant, or institutional approval processes, The Open Practice Academy can provide a formal invoice, W-9, service description, learning outcomes, facilitator bio, cost breakdown, and related vendor documentation as needed.

Megan Zara

Open Practice Strategist

Megan Zara is the Founder and Open Practice Strategist of The Open Practice Academy. Her work brings together Open Education, digital learning, literacy, care-centered design, and sustainable implementation.

Megan has experience across K–12 teaching and professional development, higher education teaching and professional development, curriculum writing, program design, and program implementation. Most recently, she built the Open Education Trailblazers Program at the University of Texas at Arlington, where she served as the Open Education Librarian.

Now, Megan is launching The Open Practice Academy while beginning a PhD in Leadership and Change. Through this work, she helps people and teams move from good intentions to usable practices through guided planning, reflective professional learning, and practical support that honors real constraints.

Book A Coffee/Tea Chat

Learn More About Megan

Bring Open Practice into your Work.

The Open Practice Academy supports educators, libraries, nonprofits, and learning teams with human-centered design, open education strategy, and practical implementation support.

Support Hours

Custom Learning

Workshops & Materials

Professional development for open education, digital learning, and human-centered practice.

The Open Practice Academy helps people and teams build learning that can survive real life through Open Education professional development, multimodal learning design, and care-centered implementation support.