CFT Teaching Guides Week: Day 5
Day 5: Feminist Pedagogy
In mid-February, the CFT hosted a committed group of graduate student instructors from different disciplines along with Graduate Teaching Fellow, Benjamin Galina, and former Assistant Director, Nancy Chick, to participate in a collaborative write-a-thon on feminist pedagogy. Those graduate student instructors, all of whom had expressed interest in feminist pedagogy in their careers, are Liz Valle-Ruiz (Graduate Department of Religion), Kristen Navarro (English), Kirsten Mendoza (English), Allison McGrath (Sociology), Sherry Brewer (Theological Studies), and Raquelle Bostow (French). In the span of four hours of brainstorming, planning, and writing, a teaching guide was born.
As this teaching guide suggests on its homepage, feminist pedagogy is not comprised of a series a tools or a list of best practices ready for use in the classroom, but rather it is “an overarching philosophy—a theory of teaching and learning that integrates feminist values with related theories and research on teaching and learning.” The framework of this teaching guide is structured to help instructors in the development of that overarching philosophy of feminist pedagogy in a holistic way that relies on extensive research. More specifically, the framework consists for aligning pedagogical practices with instructor values and beliefs, or the habits of head, heart, and hand (Lee Schulman, “Signature Pedagogies in the Professions“).
In this guide, we explain some of the fundamental beliefs, values, and intentions behind feminist pedagogy to inform a deliberate application in specific classrooms–any and all classrooms, as feminist pedagogy can inform any disciplinary context.
Instructors from all walks of higher education (and elsewhere) will find this guide valuable in thinking about their own philosophy of teaching as well as their courses and classroom environments. With that in mind, take a look, discuss, and share!
Stay tuned for more CFT news on this and related topics coming this fall!
Featured Image: “Teach/Learn,” Duane Schoon, Flickr (CC-BY)
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