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

by Sara L. Crawley

A central tenet of feminist pedagogies is to engage students in dialogue, rather than a teacher-centered lecturing method that is commonly used in college classrooms (Chow et al. 2003, Friere 1970, hooks 1994). This possibility is complicated by faculty's charge to impart a particular body of discipline-specific knowledge for each class taught. How can faculty impart this knowledge in such a way as to incite dialogue rather than perpetuate monologue? How shall faculty attempt to get students interested in a subject (and maintain their own excitement for the material) when we have no idea where each student's personal connection with the material lies? In this article, I outline two student-centered pedagogical methods–lecturing with questions and student-centered assignments– in which the goal is to incite students and faculty to full engagement and to think reflexively throughout the classroom experience.