Technology has a complicated history in feminist studies. It has been critiqued as a tool of oppression and appropriated as a means to empowerment. New scholarship suggests a reality beyond this bifurcation. Technologies are not “bad” or “good,” but become embedded within particular social, cultural, and political relations. The challenge is to pay attention to how technologies function in specific contexts while also exploring their potential to help create dynamic ways of thinking and interacting. Our work on technology and education emerges from this dual desire to use academic technologies for feminist pedagogies and to situate the digital turn in higher education within a broader context of institutional change.
We would like to provide a little background on our department and curriculum to lend some context for the development of the modules. GWSS (previously Women’s Studies) has been a department at the University of Minnesota for nearly 40 years. It has grown immensely during this time and offers undergraduate major and minor in GWSS as well as an undergraduate minor in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT) Studies. We are one of a handful of departments in the United States where one can pursue a PhD in Feminist Studies. While we have wonderful and dedicated undergraduate majors and minors, most of our students come from a wide range of colleges including College of Liberal Arts, Carlson School of Management, College of Education and Human Development, and the College of Science and Engineering. Our six introductory 1xxx level courses and fifteen intermediate 3xxx level courses draw approximately a thousand students in a given year. Our class sizes range from 20-120 students. We use a variety of technologies in our courses to engage students (e.g. blogs, video annotations, clickers, and interactive modules). During Spring 2012, four classes employed the modules as part of their mandatory or optional class assignments.
We face a dilemma many interdisciplinary instructors understand. Given that the majority of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies (GWSS) courses do not carry prerequisites, our classrooms are composed of students with highly uneven exposure to the field. We believe that this interdisciplinary space is both the strength of GWSS as well as a challenge that demands thoughtful negotiation. Our priority as educators is to ensure that all students are equipped with the basic tools necessary for engaging course material. To achieve this under such circumstances, instructors end up reviewing the same set of concepts at the beginning of every course, which is both tedious for more advanced majors and overwhelming for those who are new to the specific language and terminology of the field (Some content abstracted from a small technology grant, co-authored with Diane Detournay.) .
Our project, “Technology for Feminist Pedagogy: Learning Key Concepts Through Interactive Modules,” uses innovations in digital learning to teach key feminist concepts. We worked with members of the CLA-OIT staff to use Soft Chalk to create online, interactive learning modules that supplement material covered by our undergraduate curriculum. They are made available to our instructors through a university password protected MOODLE and are intended to enrich, not replace, in-class learning. Each module introduces one feminist theory, such as intersectionality, or area of study, such as whiteness, that pertain to multiple course offerings. Thus the modules do not correspond to any one particular class but instead represent concepts that recur throughout our undergraduate curriculum.
All modules have a main content page, from which users can move chronologically or otherwise. This feature is in place so that users less familiar with a given theme can move progressively through the content while those more comfortable with the material can self-select the areas around which they need greater clarity. Numbered pages appearing at the top and in the sidebar of each screen also allow users to move at will, as shown below.
In each module, explanatory narrative and excerpts from key scholarly texts are accompanied by examples from films, media and popular culture. These multiple forms represent ideas as complex while they also respond to different learning styles (auditory, visual, etc.).
By working through examples that are familiar and relevant, students learn to apply theoretical tools to everyday life and see how they are useful for analyzing the world around them.
At the end of each module is a quiz, which is automatically graded. Users may make multiple attempts at answering correctly, and when complete, explanations of correct responses are provided. This feature allows users to both test and apply their knowledge of the material covered by the module. Instructors are able to maintain a record of quiz scores, making it a useful class assignment.
The modules address our dilemma by allowing students to engage with core concepts at their own pace. Focused on developing a conceptual “toolbox” and providing an introduction to key issues and themes, the modules establish a shared knowledge base that functions as the starting point for or synthesis of in-class lectures and discussions. Instructors have used the modules at various points in their classes: some have assigned the modules to students during the initial first weeks as a way to provide an introduction to critical concepts, while other instructors have assigned them at the midpoint or end of the semester to assist students in solidifying their knowledge about the concept over the semester. Furthermore, the modules offer different avenues into these topics than a traditional lecture allows, and thus foster multiple forms of engagement with the material. As students advance through their GWSS course(s), they can return to the modules for reference when writing papers, or as a review for quizzes and exams. Students frequently cite lecture notes and modules together in their essays, indicating that they see them as compatible and complementary sources that help them understand class materials.
The modules seem to be effective tools for teaching students what we think are critical concepts. But like all technologies and learning tools, they have their limitations and constraints. Several issues we have confronted already are the flexibility and sustainability of the project. Like all curricular materials, the modules reflect the intellectual perspective of their creators. We understand that instructors may want to teach a concept from a different historical or theoretical vantage point that is not currently reflected in the module itself. We hope that this will inspire others to want to create additional materials for modules as well. For example, it would be ideal to have several modules on the concept of whiteness that approach the concept from a variety of feminist approaches. In order to ensure the sustainability of the module project, we have to keep the current modules “fresh” and create new modules. This can be a labor-intensive endeavor.
But we want to make clear that our turn to technology is to aid feminist praxis and is not merely an effort to “keep up” with the demand for innovation qua innovation’s sake nor is it a simple salve for the many challenges within higher education. Institutions of higher education are undergoing structural and ideological changes that include the commodification of knowledge production, the commercialization of learning, and the privileging of consumer interests in pedagogy and curricular design. The digital turn in higher education must be understood in terms of these broader institutional changes, which have been especially challenging for smaller liberal arts departments, like GWSS, to negotiate. By digitalizing aspects of our curriculum, we do not intend to make our courses larger and more appealing or to devalue the labor of our instructors. Moreover, we remain sensitive to issues of access and consider the limitations that arise when complex and often “triggering” material is not presented in “real time.” Nevertheless, we remain hopeful in light of these challenges and continue to be excited about the new directions in feminist learning and potential for trans-disciplinary collaborations this project might engender.