Tulane University Scholars Develop the Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online

Women make up 59 percent of the student body at Tulane University in New Orleans. Yet, women are only 36 percent of the faculty for undergraduate programs. These figures combined with the university’s switch to online learning last spring pushed Clare Daniel, administrative assistant professor of women’s leadership at the university’s Newcomb Institute, and Jacquelyne Thoni Howard, administrative assistant professor of technology and women’s history at the Newcomb Institute, to create the “Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online.”

“I’m not sure we realized we were filling a need for the wider feminist academic community when we began creating the guide, but the very positive reactions we have gotten indicate this,” said Dr. Daniel. “It’s great to see people engaging with the guide and passing along their feedback and suggestions. We look forward to continuing to develop it into a robust digital resource for feminist instructors across fields.”

While the guide was made with online learning in mind, it can be applied to physical classrooms as well as virtual ones. Dr. Howard says she hopes “that with the right instructional technology tools and intentional integration of feminist pedagogy principles, instructors could construct dynamic and active online learning communities similar to what occurs in the traditional classroom.”

Lauren Lehmann, one of the co-presidents of Feminist Alliance of Students at Tulane, encourages the university community to read the guide, saying “it is so necessary to include increased gender and sexuality education in Tulane’s curriculum to send Tulane alumni out into the world with a well-rounded and inclusive world view.”