Developing a 12-Hour Women's Studies Program
Through Distance Learning
Compressed Video Panel Presentation
We Are All Connected and No One's In Charge:
Teaching in the Crucible of Contradictory Experience
23 May 2001
This panel responds to the question: "How does our experience in feminist pedagogy dovetail with online, distance teaching and learning experiences?" This question seems paradoxical in that the engaged empowerment created in the alchemy of the feminist classroom and the casualness of the asynchronous online course seem mutually exclusive.
The University of Maine System has been a pioneering force in Distance Education, responding to the rurality of the state and a philosophy of access to education. Currently, 70-74% of the University of Maine System's distance students are women. We will argue that, for the most part, distance technologies are a great boon to Maine women, giving women students easier access to higher education. Panelists will describe their experiences with a variety of courses, often utilizing hybrid delivery systems as well as strictly web-based courses. We hope, by describing our solutions and our praxis, to suggest an evolving hybrid pedagogy that draws from changes in the concept of education articulated early by Friere, and carried forward by the feminist enterprise in the classroom and the current student-centered ideal.
Members of the panel are:
Tina Passman, Chair and Associate Professor of Classical Language and Literature, U Maine
Sandra Haggard, Associate Professor of Biology, University College of Bangor
Carol Toner, Coordinator of Maine Studies and Research Associate Professor of History, U Maine
Phyllis VonHerrlich, Distance Student, Senior in the Bachelor of University Studies Program, with a concentration in Women's Studies
Jim Toner, Director of Distance Education,
U Maine (Jim also teaches interdisciplinary courses on-line)