Theme 1: The Role of Reflexivity

Full-Contact Pedagogy: Lecturing with Questions and Student-Centered Assignments as Methods for Inciting Self-Reflexivity for Faculty and Students

by Sara L. Crawley, with Heather Curry, Julie Dumois-Sands, Chelsea Tanner, and Cyrana Wyker

Full-contact pedagogy? How strange to use a sports analogy for a feminist essay, but I am going to attempt it! I believe as effective teachers our goal is to attempt full contact with students—to capture their attention and engage them even when they themselves are reluctant to be engaged. So, much like a contact sport, we strive for full contact. I am not afraid of the critique that aggressiveness is inconsistent with feminist pedagogies. I think it is disingenuous to argue that we hope for anything less than full intellectual contact with our students. Certainly feminism and feminist theory have made a movement out of aggressively debating important ideas of equal access and equal participation of all people in social processes, such as education. I strive for full contact.