My Inspiration for this Project--Why I'm Interested in Women's Studies

I have been trying to find a method to make my course WMST 227 Women In Society a good combination of Women’s Studies and Sociology. I hold a joint position in both these departments and so I draw students who are interested in one. the other and sometimes both. Since it is a lower division course, I also have students in a variety of other departments hoping to gain interdisciplinary knowledge of women’s issues. Although I address these concerns in a variety of ways, I thought a project that would get my students to make a direct connection with the work and life of a living sociologist might be a step toward meeting some of my goals.

The Definition of the Project

The project is simple in its conception. Students were assigned the name of a woman who has made a significant contribution to the field of sociology who is still living and working. I have been inspired by various compilations of feminist “memoirs” and thought that gathering our own information would let my students see that everyone starts some place and builds a career in historical context. I simply sat down and off the top of my head named the women who appear on this list…we were only limited by the number of student in the class. Many more women can be added to the list and I hope to find a way to make this a growing compilation of information. I made it a project that was connected to the technology that is familiar to our students and that would allow them to be creative. I also think that collecting and disseminating information about women scholars on the internet is an important thing to do.

As a group we collectively and consensually determined the categories that we would put into the Blogs. This process allowed us to work together as a group and to think about why we would want to know and present particular kinds of information. It also gave us an opportunity to draw upon the resources of other women at the University, in particular our Women’s Studies Librarian Shana Higgins, who helped to develop our resources and to guide us in reading and using sources on the net. In addition, our Information Technology Specialist, Catherine Walker, helped demystify the technology for those not as familiar with it and encourage us all to use it to the best of our abilities. In this way, the project allowed me to model and provide an experience for working together toward a common goal.

Once the categories were chosen, each student set about filling them in according to a flexible schedule. At three different points, a third of the categories were turned in using the class Blackboard site. I would review, grade and make suggestions for improvement. The final Blog sites that appear at the right reflect all students who received at least a grade of 3.0 on their Blog entries. Part of what made the project both exciting and frustrating for the students was that they had decided to include several categories that depended on getting in touch with, and getting a timely response from, their person. At the end of the project about half of the students had achieved some contact with their assigned sociologist. Those that did not, had to make due with other means of finding their information and filling in their categories. However, all students found that they needed to do research to assure that their entries were complete and interesting. As the professor, I found this an exciting way to encourage research that was in addition to our other class work and to blend the use of on-line and academic resources. In the end, it seemed that students were very jazzed by the contacts. Reading their own entries about what they learned is very instructive and makes me believe that this information will stick in their heads in a way yet one more research paper will not.

Advantages/Disadvantages

Above I have already stated some of the advantages to such a project that I see. The biggest advantage, however, is that having a project that is individual, yet collective, allows me to talk about and implement aspects of feminist pedagogy that I think are important to incorporate in Women’s Studies classes. Having a project that can potentially reach beyond the classroom also seems to assure a particular level of performance that is more consistent across the group. People help and inspire each other both technically and in terms of how to do further research on the topic. It also is more fun for both the students and I and provides an ongoing “drama” to the completion of the class that, at least in this case, was invigorating.

Some of the advantages I didn’t expect from this project included the level to which some of the students were able and willing to integrate their knowledge from the class into reading and reviewing the work of their sociologist. I was also surprised that very few of the students were interested in having me “pave the way” in contacting their person. I anticipated that they might be apprehensive, but everyone was very confident initially that they could do what they needed to do to convince the women to respond. Many were continually innovative in the ways that they persisted in making and continuing their process of contacting their individuals.

Of course, the biggest disadvantage from the perspective of the students is that their contacts were not as forthcoming as they had hoped. People are very busy and although we spoke about this many times, some folks left the contact till way too late in the game. In the end, contacting the sociologist did not determine success on the project and once students understood this, they became more creative at both getting in touch and in using already existing materials—which are considerable for some of the women included.

An unanticipated disadvantage was also the hesitancy that some of the women had in sharing and providing permission to use information. In some circumstances the reach of the net has been nasty and painful and so people were justifiably cautious. This actually gave the class the opportunity to talk about and better understand how to present the information. I did need to make a provision that for those who could not use all their information that I would review it in our Blackboard format and that they would not be penalized. Having the discussion about the moral implications of the work was also important and added a dimension that makes us view these Blogs as different from our My Space or Facebook sites.

Lessons Learned--What I Would Do Differently

This is only the second course in which I have used any of this sort of technology and I am trying to learn from each of these experiments. What I do know is that my students are incredibly tolerant of and enthused by trying to do something like this that is different and where it is very obvious to them that I am a co-learner. They may not always like every part of the process, but they are, and should be, proud of their results. They bring and share their various abilities to the table and we really do enter into a learning community when this happens.

I think I would be more insistent about the timing of the contacts next time around. I would build in some way to assure that an initial email to the person was sent early on (perhaps via requiring a copy of it to be sent to me). I would also include a few more workshop days in order to solve some of the individual issues that arose so that everyone could further benefit from the growing collective knowledge. I would also probably use a website the next time around. The advantages to the Blog are that it is easier to develop aesthetically pleasing sites and teach the technology. The down side is that there is no way to assure that these entries will be here in a year since each student is responsible for maintaining their own site.

Invitation for Your Comments

I want to thank the students in this class for their dedication and work to this project. My faculty colleagues in the Library and IT added a great deal to the student’s success in sharing their knowledge and setting high standards. I want to thank all the women sociologists who were willing to participate in this project as interviewees…thanks for sparing the time and helping me better teach this course. I would now like to invite all of you and anyone else that has an interest to read through the Blogs and leave your perceptions of the project here for all of us to see and learn from as we consider our next step in this work.