A Guide to Teaching Introductory Women's and Gender Studies: Socially Engaged Classrooms

by Holly Hassel, Christie Launius, Susan Rensing

Overview

This book provides a practical, evidence-based guide to teaching introductory Women's and Gender Studies courses. Based on the findings of a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning project that analyzed 72 Intro students’ written work, the authors equip instructors with key principles that can help them adapt their pedagogy to a range of classroom environments. By putting student learning at the center of course design, the authors invite readers to reflect on their own investments in and goals for the introductory course. The book also draws on the authors’ combined decades of teaching experience, and aims to help instructors anticipate the emotional, intellectual, and interpersonal challenges and rewards of teaching and learning in the introductory WGS course. Chapters focus on course design, including identifying desired learning outcomes (in terms of course content, skills, and dispositions or habits of mind); choosing course materials; pedagogical activities; andassessing student learning.

This book will be an invaluable resource for experienced WGS instructors and those seeking or planning to teach it for the first time, including graduate students and high school teachers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030717841
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	05/11/2021
Edition description:	1st ed. 2021
Pages:	133
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Holly Hassel is Professor of English at North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND. Previously, she taught writing and women's and gender studies at the University of Wisconsin-Marathon County, a two-year college, for 16 years. She is the co-author, with Christie Launius, of Threshold Concepts in Women's and Gender Studies, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2018).

Christie Launius is Associate Professor and Head of the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies Department at Kansas State University. With Holly Hassel, she is co-author of the introductory textbook Threshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies.

Susan Rensing is Teaching Associate Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at Kansas State University. She has taught multiple sections of the introductory WGS course every semester for the last 13 years and has been recognized for her distinguished teaching.

Table of Contents

Introduction.- Principles for Crafting Your Course and Classroom Environment.- Creating Effective Classrooms: Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Course Materials.- Student Learning and Principles for Assessment.- Annotated Examples of Assessments and Rubrics.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

A Guide to Teaching Introductory Women’s and Gender Studies is a book I want to read. And read again. Especially impressive is the authors’ qualitative research that undergirds their conceptual framework, which allows them to ground analyses and suggestions in experiential terms. They present brief vignettes and more extended case studies to give readers a rich—and unusual—glimpse into the various ways students grapple with course materials and to demonstrate how their pedagogy can operate in a classroom setting.
Agatha Beins, Associate Professor of Multicultural Women’s and Gender Studies, Texas Woman's University, USA

A Guide to Teaching Introductory Women’s and Gender Studies is essential reading. Accessible and engaging, the book offers practical advice for newcomers to the field, and for those of us who have been teaching for decades, it gently nudges us to reconsider our approach to teaching the introductory course. I wish this book had existed when I started teaching, but as someone who is constantly working to improve my classes, I am happy to have this resource in my teaching toolbox today.
Shereen Siddiqui, Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality, & Women's Studies, Santiago Canyon College, USA

In A Guide to Teaching Introductory Women's and Gender Studies: Socially Engaged Classrooms, Hassel, Launius, and Rensing have written a tiny tour-de-force that walks the talk of Women's and Gender Studies. The authors succinctly explore not only what but also how and why students learn in a well-designed intro WGS course. I can think of no other text that so effectively prepares instructors teaching Women's and Gender Studies for the first time, or the thirty-first time.
Nancy Chick, Director of the Endeavor Foundation Center for Faculty Development and Professor of English, Rollins College, USA

Hassel, Launius, and Rensing have written a vital text for those who teach a vital class: the introductory course in women’s and gender studies. This book is a much-needed jolt of energy and reminder of the possibilities that WGS offers for our students. Based on extensive research and an impressive range of practical experience, A Guide to Teaching Introductory Women’s and Gender Studies will be the go-to resource for teachers in the field.
Kevin Gannon, Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and Professor of History, Grand View University, USA

In A Guide to Teaching Introductory Women’s and Gender Studies, Hassel, Launius, and Rensing reflect on their classroom practice, share evidence-based approaches, and pose critical questions to help readers clarify their curricular goals for this crucial course that serves as a gateway to the WGS degree. This book is an invaluable resource for new instructors and experienced professors alike.
Jennifer Musial, Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, New Jersey City University, USA

Rather than romanticize the labor of teaching the introductory course, Hassel, Launius, and Rensing take a sober – and yet hopeful – look at the potentials and challenges of feminist pedagogies in times of national and global crises. The thoughtful advice they provide reads as an invitation to new and seasoned feminist teachers to both rethink and reimagine our own commitments to engaged feminist pedagogies and curricular transformations.
Dana M. Olwan, Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Syracuse University, USA