I do not know how many people actually read this blog, but I figured I would go ahead and share that “Learning Designers in Context” is now available for pre-order.
It also is discounted right now, when you order it directly from the publisher:Pre-Order Here
The book is scheduled for release December 5th, 2025. Copies of the book will be shipped after the released date.
I have previously published two edited books (i.e., Research Methods in Learning Design and Technology, Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online) and it honestly feels so different promoting a solo-authored book! In previous instances, I wanted to recognized and disseminate their work of my colleagues who had their work in the edited books, so promoting those books felt easy! However, having to promote my solo-authored book is so hard. I feel like my introverted side all of a sudden takes over!
I also wanted to add that if anyone would like to get a copy of the book, feel free to send me an email. I am happy to share a PDF.
Over the last few weeks, I have re-read the proofs of my forthcoming book “Learning Designers in Contexts” so many times that I honestly I feel I could recite some of the chapters. Due to some communication issues, the release date has been pushed back a bit. It is all part of the process or at least that is what I tell myself.
I am very happy that last Friday I saw a final version of the proofs. But that excitement was quickly met with a very familiar feeling of seen a grammatical mistake in the final proofs. It always happens! After seen this, I laughed a bit, closed my computer, and when to my son’s soccer game.
Last week, I also contacted the publisher and asked for permission to share a bit of the book in my blog. My editor, Hannah, asked me what chapter I wanted to share and I decided to go with Chapter 15. This sneak preview PDF also includes the table of content. I will do a bit more writing about the other chapters in the upcoming month or so. But, for now you are welcome to read Chapter 15.
Abstract:
This chapter is based on a keynote address I delivered at the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) International Convention on October 22, 2024, in Kansas City, Missouri. The speech has been adapted for this book, maintaining its original themes and ideas while refining the content for a reading audience. Through the lens of deep canvassing and the acknowledgment of practitioners’ stories, the chapter highlights how context-specific experiences shape competencies and practices. It advocates for moving beyond Anglocentric and Eurocentric paradigms to embrace inclusive approaches. By reflecting on personal journeys and collective actions, the chapter underscores storytelling as a transformative tool for fostering understanding and innovation in education technology and learning design.
This post was originally published on AECT Interactions but is no longer available there. However, an archived version can be accessed via the Wayback Machine using this link. As the original author, I wanted to make sure this content remains accessible to ensure continued access to its insights and discussions. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out.
Feminist pedagogies belong in academia, whether incorporated into onsite or online curricula. If this term is new to you, or if you’d like to find out how you might bring feminist pedagogies into your teaching, I welcome you to read on.
I’ll start here: I consider myself an intersectional feminist. As thoroughly discussed by Rosemary Tong, in her book Feminist Thought, feminist theories aim to describe women’s experiences through analyzing patriarchy, sexuality, or other ideologies. Yet it often overlooks the role of race and class. Therefore, feminist theory remains White and its potential to broaden and deepen its analysis by addressing non-privileged women remains unrealized (Crenshaw, 1989). Intersectional feminism views identities as consisting of multiple social dimensions including gender, race, sexuality, and class. As a woman of color—an Afro-Latinx woman—intersectional feminism fully embraces my experiences.
As I learned more about the feminist movement and how some colleagues have embraced feminism in their teaching practice, I quickly realized that because of my intersectional feminist tendencies I had adopted a feminist pedagogy. According to Shrewsbury (1987), feminist pedagogy is a philosophy of teaching/learning processes that guides our choice of classroom practices in which a community of learners is empowered to act responsibly towards one another and the subject matter. Feminist pedagogy also encourages us to apply what we learn to social action.
Intersectional feminism views identities as consisting of multiple social dimensions, including gender, race, sexuality, and class. As a woman of color, an Afro-Latinx woman, intersectional feminism fully embraces my experiences.— Enilda Romero-Hall
FEMINIST PEDAGOGIES IN TEACHING
Here are some ways in which I have embraced intersectional feminist pedagogies in my teaching:
Construction of Knowledge: In my classroom, I view learners as equal contributors to knowledge construction. I encourage my students to reflect on prior experiences and share them during our discussions. The aim is to decentralize knowledge.
Put it into practice: The learners in my courses are empowered and the ‘learner-instructor’ relationship is transformed (e.g. creating an open access book authored by graduate students in a course). I also aim to decolonize knowledge by acknowledging the existence of multiple epistemological frameworks from scholars around the world. Examples of decolonization of knowledge include having a variety of guest speakers, sharing reading lists of non-White authors, and/or amplifying colleagues with global perspectives.
Course Design: When designing a course, I am open to being flexible, recalibrating, and redesigning based on learner inputs. There is a balance in the instructor and learner input to help inform curriculum and classroom practices.
Put it into practice: On the first day of classes, I always state that “the syllabus is not written in stone.” Therefore, it is not uncommon to have changes in the course schedule to provide learners with additional time to work on a project or explore a topic. Also, I aim to identify authentic evidence of learning. Rather than engaging learners in regurgitation of content, I use generative strategies and authentic assessments, enabling learners to show genuine and valid evidence of learning (e.g., a short writing assignment).
Power and Authority: One of the key tenets of feminist theory is to be critical of power: Who has power? Why are they in a position of power? It is important to challenge normalized notions of dominant culture because they often serve to oppress the “others.” The idea is not to give the “façade of equality,” but instead to recognize how power structures are represented in the course and take action to correct it.
Put it into practice: In my HyFlex courses, I have observed this power imbalance, noticing that my synchronous online students may not be able to interject during discussions in the same way onsite students do. Therefore, I make a point to facilitate the discussion in a manner that opens moments in which online students can interject and make a contribution to the discussion.
Dealing with Differences: In this element, the ‘intersectional’ element of feminist theory is critical. Dealing with differences encourages dialogue that helps learners come to realize their own privilege and stereotypes they may have (i.e., race, class, gender, and others). Learners also get to know their classmates and the many different views each person holds.
Put it into practice: For an onsite course, this may be an open conversation between the learners and the instructor at the beginning of the course. In an online course, it’s important to highlight this in course ‘netiquette.’ This is one of the netiquette points I like to include on the main page of my course: “Be sensitive to the fact that online participants represent a wide variety of different political and religious beliefs, as well as cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Disagreeing is fine and even encouraged, but remember that you should aim for rational discourse.”
Community Building: Embracing community-building following a feminist pedagogy framework means valuing solidarity and shared power. The idea emphasizes to the learners how collective action can help empower a group of individuals just like it can empower groups to address inequalities and discrimination faced as individuals in society.
Put it into practice: Community building can be implemented by building equitable learning communities for students who are studying in person or online (Bali, 2021).
I recently joined the curation team of the Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online guide (co-curators include: Clare Daniel, Jacquelyne Thoni Howard, Niya Bond, and Liv Newman). The initial founders created it as a resource to assist faculty with the mass transition to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as feminist pedagogies are equally important in online teaching and learning. The guide includes a range of readings, podcasts, and teaching tools that embrace the tenets of feminist pedagogy.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Here are additional resources and readings that can also benefit you as you consider feminist pedagogies in your own teaching practice:
Campbell, K. (2015). The feminist instructional designer: An autoethnography. In B. Hokanson, G. Clinton, & M. Tracey (Eds.) The design of learning experience. Educational communications and technology: Issues and innovations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16504-2_16
This seems like the perfect time to come back to write a blog post again, after recently returning from the 2024 AECT International Convention. I am worried that if I share everything that I want to share, this blog post would be super lengthy. So, I going to do my best to it keep short and sweet!
I first joined AECT in 2009 and that year I attended my first AECT conference. I had ZERO funds to attend the conference but a classmates of mine offered to let me crash in her hotel (at no extra cost) and share her per diem with me (our plan was to live off pizza for a a few days). The organization she worked for was paying for her trip and she wanted to support me. I am never going to forget that. Thank you Dr. Sonya Bland-Williams!
Back to #AECT24.
This year the AECT International Convention was special in many ways. First, the conference was returning to Kansas City. A place that is very special to my heart:
In the spirit of sharing stories, which is the theme of AECT 2024, I thought I would share a short but special story with all of you: Exactly twenty years ago, I embarked in my higher education studies in the United States. I was accepted into an International Business program at Emporia State University in Emporia, KS. I left the safety of home and started my own journey. The first stop on that journey was Kansas City and very specifically this hotel, The Kansas City Marriott Downtown. So, in many ways, getting to do this AECT keynote here, in Kansas City and in this hotel, feels to me like I have come full circle. So, for that I am very thankful!
Also, conferences in Kansas City are wonderful opportunity to meet with my college roommate, Mikelle. There is something about sharing a college dorm with someone else, you either become really close or you may never want to see each other again. Mikelle and I have been friends from the moment we met, 20 years ago! She is such a kind soul! Her and her family were so incredible welcoming of me when I was in college. Mikelle was living in the dorm just for fun, because her family actually lived in our college town. So I was able to spend time with them (her family) regularly!
Another aspect that made this conference so special was that I was attending #AECT24 with my doctoral advisees: Wei Wang, Ashley King, and Yuexin (Jennifer) Duan. We have been working on projects for some time but we were finally able to start sharing some of the findings from our research with the AECT community this year. Wei is a force to be reckoned with! He is making moves as a researcher and a graduate assistant for the Digital Learning team at UTK. This year, Wei and his colleagues from Digital Learning presented “Implementing Generative AI in Practice: Designing Assessments and Learning Activities in Faculty Development Programs“. This work focuses on professional development that Digital Learning has been doing in the UTK campus to engage in conversations with faculty about the use of generative AI in higher education and its implications.
Ashley and Jennifer presented on a “work in progress project”. As a research team, we have been working a on a range of different systematic reviews. The project that Ashley and Jennifer shared related to “small group dynamics in asynchronous online learning”. The presentation primarily focused on the introduction of the topic up until the process of analysis of the journal articles for inclusion in the systematic review. We will continue to move forward with data extraction and the remainder of the process. Also, quick shout to all the members of our team who were not able to attend but have worked with us on this project!
The best way I can describe this experience is that: I am a proud advisor and that I am lucky to work with such an amazing team!
Then there is Dr. Lucy Santos Green! What else do I need to say! Lucy is the mastermind behind this project called “Online Ready”. Long story short, Online Ready is a federally funded project that aims to equips school librarians to deploy effective practices for culturally competent and inclusive K-12 online instruction. Having Lucy at AECT to speak about this project with me, was definitely a highlight! We have been working on this project for the last 3 years virtually and getting to see her and feed off her energy is just so amazing! Here are our slides. Our presentation at AECT 2024 focused on the implementation of Online Ready with school librarian with the goal of receiving feedback during Summer 2023. Online Ready will be available open access for anyone to use and share by next spring! More on this coming soon!
This is getting long! Yikes!
This year, it was such a humbling experience to also be the closing keynote for the conference. When the organizer of AECT 2024, Drs. Tonia Dousay, Tutaleni Asino, andRebecca Reese reach out early this year, I was so incredibly honored! I know that we have a wide range of colleagues who are doing impactful work, so it meant a lot to be considered for this role. What made it even more special was that a dear friend and colleague was also going to be a keynote speaker, Dr. George Veletsianos. George’s keynote, as expected “delivered”! It already had a major impact on my advisees and their career goals. So, I am very grateful for his message!
Technology, Imagination, and Education Futures: Education systems worldwide face profound economic, demographic, political, environmental, and social challenges. Traditionally, our field has responded by either embracing the latest technological advancements or striving to make instruction more effective, efficient, and engaging. However, these approaches are not enough. They are limiting and insufficient. They constrain our imagination and curtail our ability to create better educational futures for ourselves, our students, and our societies. In this talk, I will explore how speculative methods can offer creative, exploratory, and fruitful ways to examine, produce, and rethink the learning environments we are developing and supporting.
As George’s colleague, Dr. Bruna Damiana Heisfeld mentioned: “great minds think alike.” Because both keynote discussed how we can move forward as a field considering ways in which we can humanize learning design research and practice. Here are the slides from my closing keynote and my abstract:
(Re)Igniting Empowered Actions: Over the last few years, we have seen many political, social, and educational shifts that have impacted how we live, work, and learn. We have also experienced a global pandemic that changed us. In many ways we have spent a great deal of time simply surviving. All of these experiences have shaped who we are as individuals, but also as learning designers, educators, and researchers. Today, as we move forward, it is even more important than ever before that we critically reignite our purpose with empowered actions. This talk reflects on why and how we connect with the world around us in intentional empathetic ways that at the core aim to humanize learning design practice and the use of emerging technologies in education. Let’s tap into the power of our stories to share the narratives that often go untold. For good reason, there is a strong focus on the reimagining of our educational futures. Yet, we need to be cognizant that our actions today already shape those visions of tomorrow. Today, equitable and ethical learning design practices and research are not just a “good idea,” they must be the norm. The reality is that efficient, effective, and engaging in not enough to fully capture the socio-cultural context of the world we live in.
Thank you AECT for such a memorable experience!
Also because I always take a million photos: Here you go! Also, thanks to those who shared photos with me!
I was recently invited to write a post for the newly established AECT Interactions digital publication. I welcomed the opportunity to write about a topic of my choice and was honored to be amongst those invited (which included colleagues who I deeply admired and whose work I value). Since I am starting to explore and write about feminist theories in various ways in my work, I decided that I wanted to write a short practical piece about feminist pedagogy. The lead of this new AECT initiative, Dr. Michael Grant, encourages us to write pieces that serve as a reflection of our own teaching experience and/or research outcomes. It seemed natural to me to write about my own experience embracing feminist pedagogies in my teaching. You can read my published post in AECT Interactions here: How to Embrace Feminist Pedagogies in your Courses
I shared the post widely online in different social media outlets and received fairly positive feedback on the topic and content covered. One of my favorite comments was shared in a Facebook group. It put a smile on my face. Below is a screenshot of the comment.
With the intent to hold on to every bit of positivity during this bizarre days in which we are all dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, I share with you: the acknowledgement.
I am in the final stages of getting all materials to the publisher for the “Research Methods in Learning Design and Technology” book. These materials include the front matter documents. I figured what better way to start blogging about this edited volume than to share the acknowledgement and to recognize those who in one way or another had an impact on this work.
I am putting together a list of social media groups, specifically Facebook and LinkedIn groups, to share with the students in the UT IDT program. I thought it would be a nice resource that would allow them to be expose to diverse groups of instructional designers in different settings, levels of experience, and locations. I remember when I first started my IDT master program it seemed like there was hardly anyone else who knew what was instructional design. In any case, I know it can feel like just you and your classmates are learning about instructional design. In reality, we have large communities of instructional design practitioners, students, and faculty. This is a work in progress list, I will add more groups as I come across them.
Florida Suncoast Chapter: Association for Talent Development:
Moment of Honesty A:
I was really dreading attending AECT 2018.
Moment of Honesty B:
I feel that I am changing as a scholar, as person, and a member of society
I attended my first AECT conference in 2009 and felt welcomed. I knew immediately that I would come back every year. I became involved in the leadership as part of the Research & Theory Division (RTD). I started serving in the RTD board in 2010 and I am stepping down from my leadership role this year. As an active member of AECT it has been a very rewarding experience.
This year, however, I felt a bit different and I think it is related to the “Moment of Honesty B.” I wish I could articulate all of this in a better way but that seems to be work in progress.
I do want to say that although I was dreading attending AECT 2018, I am glad I attended this year. First, I had a pretty awesome roommate (Dr. Valerie Irvine)! Also, I got to hangout with the usual suspects that shall remain nameless and with whom I can be brutally honest. Third, I got to see colleagues from around the globe and talked about the projects they are working on (great intellectual discourse!). Last, I joined several panels and contributed to conversations related to the IDT field, higher education practices, and our role as scholars.
I am very much looking forward to AECT 2019! We are so lucky to have Dr. Michael Grant as our president-elect (and as the person who will be leading the planning of AECT 2019). Based on my past experiences working with Michael, I know it is going to be amazing!
Abstract: In this critical autoethnography, we come together as female instructional design (ID) faculty and graduate students. We use self-reflection to explore, through our writing, the experiences of our lives as female scholars. This includes gender-related challenges, concerns, and experiences that shape our lives as researchers, instructors, and practitioners. The theoretical frameworks that guide this critical autoethnography are radical and intersectional feminism. Radical feminists practice consciousness-raising in which women come together to share their personal experiences with each other. Intersectional feminists acknowledge that the various aspects of humanity, such as class, race, sexual orientation, and gender do not exists separately from each other. Our stories provide a view into the gender inequalities experienced by women, from various cultural backgrounds, ranks, and roles, while maneuvering the socio-cultural norms ingrained in higher education institutions. Our intention is that these stories generate understanding of these issues and inform ways that higher education may be more inclusive and supportive of female academics in the future.
This personalized URL provides 50 days’ free access to the article (until November 17, 2018). You are welcome to read or download. No sign up, registration, or fees are required: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Xoml-6kqPaWN
This editorial was recently published (online first). It will be available on print in the next issue of TechTrends introducing the articles that showcase “innovation in research methodology in the instructional design & technology field.”
Design Goodiness 
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