"Don't Hate Me Because I'm Virtual": Feminist Pedagogy in the Online Classroom Author(S): NANCY CHICK and HOLLY HASSEL Source: Feminist Teacher, Vol
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"Don't Hate Me Because I'm Virtual": Feminist Pedagogy in the Online Classroom Author(s): NANCY CHICK and HOLLY HASSEL Source: Feminist Teacher, Vol. 19, No. 3 (2009), pp. 195-215 Published by: University of Illinois Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40546100 Accessed: 01-12-2016 15:44 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40546100?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms University of Illinois Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Feminist Teacher This content downloaded from 128.193.18.55 on Thu, 01 Dec 2016 15:44:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms "Don't Hate Me Because Pm Virtual": Feminist Pedagogy in the Online Classroom NANCY CHICK AND HOLLY HASSEL "Feminist education- the feminist classroom- is and should be a place where there is a sense of struggle, where there is visible acknowledgment of the union of theory and prac- tice, where we work together as teachers and students to overcome the estrangement and alienation that have become so much the norm in the contemporary university." -bell hooks The decade-long debate about the value ing DE, or the cyber-savvy. The chances of distance education (DE)- specifically are high that more and more of us across online teaching- may become a moot one. rank, discipline, campus type, and level of The Chronicle of Higher Education recently technical ability will venture into the vir- reported on a 2004 study, revealing that, tual classroom. "By the end of 2005, Eduventures expects As these chances increase, so do the more than 1.2 million students to be tak- objections about online classes: they ing such courses, making up about 7 per- exploit already overwhelmed faculty and cent of the 17 million students enrolled at adjunct instructors; they encourage a degree-granting institutions" (Carnevale, consumer model of education, with their "Online"). An even more recent study by accompanying marketing as "flexible" the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation reports and "convenient"; the increased amount that 89 percent of the over one thousand of reading and writing leads to instructor responding institutions offer face-to-face burnout; they are merely correspondence (F2F) instruction; 55 percent of them offer courses masquerading as intellectually online courses (Allen and Seaman 5). rigorous, college-level education; online Overall online enrollment increased from students are disengaged and even more 1.98 million students in 2003 to 2.35 mil- "estranged and alienated" than hooks's lion in 2004 (Allan and Seaman 4). With on-campus students; the courses lack numbers of such magnitude, it's hard the sense of community made possible to ignore the fact that online teaching by face-to-face classrooms; etc. Many of is becoming a reality for more and more these critiques, however, are not borne instructors at institutions traditionally out by research. For example, the Sloan offering face-to-face instruction. In times Foundation study reveals that at 74 per- of budget crises and calls for efficiency cent of public colleges, online courses and expansion into new student popu- are taught by core faculty, as opposed lations, discussions of online teaching to only 61 percent for their face-to-face are no longer just for the pioneers in the courses- indicating that it is permanent, medium, new faculty pressured into teach- not temporary, instructors who are taking FEMINIST TEACHER VOLUME I9 NUMBER 3 195 © 2OO9 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OFTHE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS This content downloaded from 128.193.18.55 on Thu, 01 Dec 2016 15:44:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms up the work of online teaching. Addition- are our combined experiences in teach- ally, one of the criteria for engagement in ing English and women's studies courses the National Survey for Student Engage- using a variety of course platforms- ment is the amount of reading and writing Desire2l_earn, Blackboard, WebCT, Pro- students do for their courses- a gauge of metheus, and LearningSpace. Nancy engagement supported by the students' even started out writing her own code for reflections on their courses in Richard J. courses delivered on simple HTML pages Light's Making the Most of College. Many and discussion boards without password online classes by nature require plenty of protection or the other conveniences both, in addition to the reading and writ- offered by these course management ing assignments shared with their face-to- systems. She's been teaching Introduction face counterparts. to Literature online every semester, includ- Given the growth in online educa- ing summers, since Fall 2000 and taught tion and the range of courses now being freshman composition online between offered in computer-mediated environ- Fall 1996 and Spring 1998. Holly has been ments, it is our contention as feminist teaching Introduction to Women's Studies teacher-scholars that the translation of online for eleven semesters. Our shared feminist pedagogy to these educational experiences in bringing feminist pedagogy venues is critical. If we don't clearly, pub- to the online setting have disabused us licly, and repeatedly define feminist peda- of the stereotypes about online courses gogy1 and discuss its benefits beyond cur- and convinced us that feminist pedagogy rent practitioners, many of our advances and the cyber-classroom can and should will either be limited to those already be productively paired. We focus not on if doing the work or credited to advocates of but how feminist pedagogy can be applied the more generic modes of active learning. broadly, to varying degrees, so that any In these circumstances, feminist pedagogy course can become virtually feminist.2 will remain a concept understood only by feminist educators, misunderstood by our Going Virtual: colleagues, and invisible to our students. Feminist Pedagogy Online Furthermore, failing to outline the many "I entered the classroom with the conviction that ways feminist pedagogy is applicable to online environments will ensure that it was crucial for me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer . myths and misconceptions about online education as the practice of freedom . educa- teaching flourish and that only the worst tion that connects the will to know with the will to versions of online pedagogy persist. We become. Learning is a place where paradise can argue here that feminist pedagogy isn't be created. " just applicable to many different disci- -bell hooks plines; it's also applicable to nontradi- tional learning environments. We are If the principles of feminist pedagogy can particularly interested in how online envi- revise classroom spaces, learning activi- ronments can become sites of feminist ties, and modes of communication and pedagogy. knowledge construction in our F2F classes, Informing our recommendations on then imagine their potential for the often feminist pedagogy in the online setting quiet, distant, lonely, impersonal non- 196 FEMINIST PEDAGOGY IN THE ONLINE CLASSROOM This content downloaded from 128.193.18.55 on Thu, 01 Dec 2016 15:44:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms spaces of online classes, where learning philosophies and values rather than on too easily slips into the one-way transfer of the limitations of the technology or on information in virtual independent study or how we can operate under traditional and correspondence courses. The potential is inappropriately gendered approaches great, particularly because online classes to technology. Our present concern is to are often full of characteristics antitheti- emphasize the importance of building the cal to our ideal feminist classroom. In our pedagogical framework and then bring research on the limited materials that the technology into that framework. Too address this issue, we've often seen the often instructors deferto the technology question phrased as such: can technology and even instructional technology staff "support and enhance the feminist class- because they're experts in the technol- room?" (Pramaggiore 164) or "How conge- ogy, but we're the experts in both the nial are these kinds of technologies to the content and the pedagogy, and a course kind of participatory, collaborative learning starts there, not with the machinery. that is the hallmark of the feminist class- Pedagogical practices can and should room?" (Rose 115-16). Not only are these drive the structure of the course, and the articles about hybrid classes or using tech- principles of feminist pedagogy should be nology to enhance F2F classes (modes very present from the beginning, rather than different from fully online courses), but add-ons at the end. also the basic question is quite different Important elements of course design from ours. What' s been asked in the past is can be deliberately structured to embed can we- and if so, how can we- use tech- feminist values in an online learning envi- nology to enhance or "deliver" a course ronment. None of our strategies is unique informed by feminist pedagogy. or bound solely to the online environment, Here we might hearken back to those since feminist pedagogy is independent governing metaphors for teaching. Answer- from the tools; our goal in this article ing this question as thus framed invites us is instead to demonstrate how feminist to examine more closely the ubiquitous practices, values, and pedagogies in F2F "delivery" metaphor used in discussions of environments can be translated effectively online learning and the ways it reinforces to the online environment.