How to Embrace Feminist Pedagogy in Your Courses

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 However, an archived version can be accessed via the Wayback Machine using this link.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.

Photo by Red Dot on Unsplash

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:

FEMEDTECH: https://femedtech.net
A Guide to Feminist Pedagogies: https://my.vanderbilt.edu/femped/
Feminist Pedagogies in Training for Gender Equality: UN Women Training Center Working Paper Series
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
Gender and Education Association Feminist Pedagogy Guide: http://www.genderandeducation.com/issues/feminist-pedagogy/
Teaching in Higher Education Special Issue on Feminist Pedagogy: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cthe20/23/5?nav=tocList
Women’s Studies Quarterly Special Issue on Feminist Pedagogy: https://www-jstor-org.esearch.ut.edu/stable/i40000208

OLC Innovate 2025 Keynote

Read Abstract and Speaker Bio

These are references that I used to inform my OLC Innovate 2025 keynote presentation:

Networked Learning Editorial Collective (NLEC). Networked Learning: Inviting Redefinition. Postdigital Science and Education 3, 312–325 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00167-8
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Luo, T., Freeman, C., & Stefaniak, J. (2020). “Like, comment, and share” —Professional development through social media in higher education: A systematic review. Education Technology Research and Development, 68, 1659-1683. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09790-5
Veletsianos, G and Kimmons, K. 2012. Networked participatory scholarship: Emergent techno-cultural pressures toward open and digital scholarship in online networks. Computers & Education, 28: 766–774. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.10.001
Romero-Hall, E. (2017). Posting, Sharing, Networking, and Connecting: Use of Social Media Content by Graduate Students. TechTrends, 61 (6), pp. 580-588.
Romero-Hall, E., Gomez-Vasquez, L., Forstman, L., Ripine, C. & Dias da Silva, C. (2023). The Complexities of Using Digital Social Networks in Teaching and Learning. The Open/Technology in Education, Society, and Scholarship Association Journal, 3(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.18357/otessaj.2023.3.1.48
Lupton, D. (2014). ‘Feeling better connected’: Academics’ use of social media. Retrieved from https://www.canberra.edu.au/aboutuc/faculties/arts-design/attachments2/pdf/n-andmrc/Feeling-Better-Connected-report-final.pdf
Rodriguez, J. (2011). Social media use in higher education: Key areas to consider for educators. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 7(4), 539-550.
Marwick, A. E., & boyd, danah. (2010). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114-133. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810365313 (Original work published 2011)
Are Students Experiencing Harassment on your College or University’s Digital Learning Platforms?
Leeder, C. (2019). How college students evaluate and share “fake news” stories. Library and Information Science Research, 41(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2019.100967
Bastick, Z. (2021). Would you notice if fake news changed your behavior? An experiment on the unconscious effects of disinformation. Computers in Human Behavior, 116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106633
Hodson, J., Gosse, C., Veletsianos, G., & Houlden, S. (2018). I get by with a little help from my friends: The ecological model and support for women scholars experiencing online harassment. First Monday, 23(8). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v23i8.9136
Castellanos-Reyes, D., Romero-Hall, E., Vasconcelos, L., & Garcia, B. (2022). Mobile learning for emergency situations: Four design cases from Latin America. In Dennen et al. (Eds), Global Perspectives on Educational Innovations for Emergency Situations. Springer, Cham.
Asino, T. I., Gurjar, N., & Boer, P. (2021). Bridging the Informal and Formal Learning Spaces with WhatsApp. The Journal of Applied Instructional Design: September 2021, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.51869/103/tangpb
“What’sApp” with the Social Message? Networked Learning and Social Media Interactions in Curriculum Design: Exploring Student Perceptions: https://www.mona.uwi.edu/soe/publications/cje/article/520
Bohemia, E., & Ghassan, A. (2012). Globally Networked Collaborative Learning in Industrial Design. American Journal of Distance Education, 26(2), 110–125. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923647.2012.663678
Shilova, M. (2017). Datafication concept: Definitions and examples. Retrieved from https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/datafication-examples/
Szcyrek S., Stewart B., & Miklas E. (2024). Educators’ understandings of digital classroom tools and datafication: perceptions from higher education faculty. Research in Learning Technology, 32. https://doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v32.3040
Krutka, D. G., Manca, S., Galvin, S. M., Greenhow, C., Koehler, M. J., & Askari, E. (2019). Teaching “Against” Social Media: Confronting Problems of Profit in the Curriculum. Teachers College Record, 121(14), 1-42. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811912101410
How have social media algorithms changed the way we interact? https://bbc.com/news/articles/cp8e4p4z97eo
UTK Collaborative Online International Learning: https://cge.utk.edu/coil/
The Global OER Graduate Network: https://go-gn.net/
CWU Library: Misinformation & Fake News Case Studies: https://libguides.lib.cwu.edu/c.php?g=625394&p=4391900#s-lg-box-30321291
Learning about Algorithm – Definition, Types, Characteristics, Applications, and more: https://www.analytixlabs.co.in/blog/what-is-an-algorithm/
Traxler, J. (2018). Learning with mobiles: The Global South. Research in Comparative and International Education, 13(1), 152-175. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745499918761509
Drexler, W. (2010). The networked student model for construction of personal learning environments: Balancing teacher control and student autonomy. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26(3). https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.1081

Huge thanks to the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) for the invitation!

Critical Conversations in Online Education: a Deep Dive into the Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online Book

Last year, I received an email from Dr. Rocio Jimenez Cortes, a full professor at Universidad de Sevilla, to do a plenary presentation as part of the “II FORO TRANSDISCIPLINAR FORO DONNA: Tecnologías y Medios para un Futuro en Igualdad” Conference. FORO DONNA is a virtual conference that focuses on:

A space for national and international dialogue around experiences and research that address and generate knowledge about the impact of digital technologies and media on gender equality and women’s well-being.

I decided to focus the plenary on a discussion about a forthcoming book that my colleagues and I co-editing titled Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online. With that in mind, I invited several of the book chapter authors to join the plenary session and together we embarked on a wonderful journey!

Our plenary is titled: “Critical Conversations in Online Education: a Deep Dive into the Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online Book”. You can watch the plenary presentation on YouTube:

Presenters:
Niya Bond (University of Maine): Using Feminist Pedagogy to (Re)Imagine Online Classrooms (Introduction)

Bridget Kriner (Cuyoga Community College): Building Participatory Spaces in Online Classrooms (Chapter 5)

Ashley Glassburn (University of Windsor): Consciousness Raising and Trauma-Informed Practice (Chapter 7)

Dr. Nandita Gurjar, Ph.D. (Rhode Island College): Humanizing Online Learning with Feminist Pedagogy (Chapter 9)

Nadia Jaramillo Cherrez (Oregon State University): Care, Identity, and Empowerment in Emergency Remotely Teaching (Chapter 11)

Enilda Romero-Hall, Ph.D. (University of Tennessee, Knoxville): Online Feminist Pedagogy: Future Learning Experiences Speculated (Conclusion)

Published Special Issue – On Gathering: Exploring Collective and Embodied Modes of Scholarly Communication and Publishing

Katina Rogers is the editors of the special issue titled : “On Gathering: Exploring Collective and Embodied Modes of Scholarly Communication and Publishing” published in the Journal of Electronic Publishing.

This issue is an exploration of the ephemeral—the stray thoughts, the side conversations, the discarded scraps and false starts that inform a published work of scholarship, usually invisibly. In putting together this collection of work, I wanted to make these traces the focal point, since so much of our actual thinking takes place in spaces of indeterminacy and interpersonal connection. – Katina Rogers

You can read Katina’s full editorial here:

Rogers, K. L., (2025) “Editor’s Gloss: The Process of Shared Knowledge Creation”, The Journal of Electronic Publishing 28(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.6835

As part of this wonderful special issue, my colleagues and I published a long overdue autoethnography title: “A Feminist Scholars Collective Supporting the Growth and Dissemination of a Digital Guide: A Collaborative Autoethnography“

This paper explores our experiences as scholars in higher education who collaborate as part of an informal collective supporting the Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online digital guide^[1]. We, the authors, have diverse professional and educational backgrounds; our areas of research interest also vary significantly. However, we have a passion for humanizing online learning experiences and practically applying feminist pedagogical tenets to these interactions. The purpose of this paper is to explore, through a process of self-reflection, our experiences as scholars in higher education as part of an informal collective supporting the Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online digital guide. To share our experiences as editors of this digital guide, we included our individual stories using a collaborative autoethnography approach. In our stories, we specifically discussed our interest in joining this collective of feminist scholars, the evolving nature of our efforts in support of the digital guide, the success experienced, the challenges that we encountered, and the internal and external support we received throughout this journey. Ideally, through this critical reflection, we can aid other collectives who already engage, or are considering engaging, in similar scholarly communication endeavors. – Romero-Hall et al., 2025

You can read out journal article here (it is available open access):

Romero-Hall, E., Daniel, C., Howard, J. T., Bond, N. & Newman, L., (2025) “A Feminist Scholars Collective Supporting the Growth and Dissemination of a Digital Guide: A Collaborative Autoethnography”, The Journal of Electronic Publishing 28(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.5878

I also want to say thank you to our wonderful special issue editor, Katina Rogers who hosted a virtual roundtable to highlight all the authors and journal articles published in the special issue. Here is the recording of the virtual roundtable:

#AECT24 Reflections

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, and Rebecca 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!

Book Release Date!

In March, after our in-person meeting in New Orleans, my co-editors and I submitted our book manuscript to Athabasca University Press. Our edited volume “Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online” (Issues in Distance Education Series) is set to be released January 4th, 2025 (or at least that is the date that Amazon will release the book).

You are welcome to pre-order it via Amazon. You also can wait until it is released because it will be available open access! As the date gets closers and we find out more information, I will be sharing more about the book. So excited!

I should add that Athabasca University Press has stated that it is possible that the book could be release Fall 2024. More than anything just know that the book is coming either later this year or early 2025 we will have the pleasure of sharing with you!

Drag Queen Story Hour

In the Fall 2019, The English Department at The University of Tampa hosted Drag Queen Story Hour. To be honest, I do not remember if the event was hosted every year or if that was the first time. I just know that a flyer about the event reached my inbox and it caught my attention. At that time my child was 3 years old and I thought for sure he would enjoy story time. Also, he love going to campus on the weekends to see where his mom worked. For us as parents it was a great to teach him about inclusivity at a young age and to encourage a love for learning and reading.

That Saturday, we made our way to campus and we mentioned to our son that we were going to “drag queen story hour.” We got there, found some good seat, and proceeded to hear the stories that the drag queens were reading for us. It was a really good crowd. There were lots of children and parents, also faculty and staff from the university. After the readings, we wanted to say thanks to our readers. My family and I made out way to the front of the room and talked to the wonderful queens. One of them asked me what my role was at the university and I mentioned that I was a professor in the department of education. They were a bit shocked because according to them ” I looked very young” (I laughed). So they proceeded to tell me that they were interested in getting masters in education, so I gave them my business and told them to reach out to me if they had any questions. My family and I then took a picture with the drag queens! It was a wonderful event.

As we were walking back to our car I ran into the Provost, who stopped by the say hi to me and my family. In the exchange we mentioned that were coming to from the Drag Queen Story Hour event and he was happy to hear we enjoyed it and that there was a great turn out. He mentioned that there had been some threats made about potential protest but that he was happy everything had gone smoothly.

Once were in our car out little one said to me: “mommy were were the dragons? I did not see any dragons”

I was confused. So I said: “dragons? Why did you think were going to see dragons?”

He responded: You said we were going to “dragon queen story hour!”

My partner and I just burst out laughing! We explained the title of event to him (and what exactly were meant by drag queens) and he said: “Oh, okay!” and moved on with his day!

The Key Podcast | @InsideHigherEd | Ep. 91

This week's episode of The Key is about a form of blended learning called HyFlex and features two professors who have both taught in the format and done research on its impact. #AcademicTwitter

🎙@DougLedIHE @ERomeroHall @AlannaGillis3

🎧 Listen ➡️ https://t.co/RdmBJ5tktI pic.twitter.com/B8isAwShEv
— Inside Higher Ed (@insidehighered) October 21, 2022

A few weeks ago, I was invited to join a podcast to talk about HyFlex Instruction. I was on travel when I saw the email from the editor in my inbox and, without too much information, I accepted to join the conversation. I really did not know what direction the podcast was going to take. I know HyFlex learning is “controversial” and even “unwelcome” by many, but I really was just going to speak facts. I reviewed some of the research I have done on the topic and the reviewed the literature I have read on the past in preparation for the podcast. I am very happy that the editor had a conversation approach to the podcast and that guided the conversation on the “what comes next” direction. I will be speaking and doing more research on this topic in the upcoming months. So, this is just the beginning of the conversation.

I really do not like listening to my voice in recordings so I just know what I said from the actual recording session. I have not heard the podcast, so I appreciate colleagues who have reached out to let me know that they enjoyed listen to the podcast and the points I shared as part of the conversation. Above is a link to the tweet from Inside Higher Ed and here is the link to the webpage: Ep.91: The Pros and Cons of HyFlex Instruction

Recent Research on Online Social Communities

Earlier this year, I made a radical decision to cut off all social media from my life. I am grateful for the detox. I eventually returned to Twitter and LinkedIn, quietly, over the summer but now I am bit more active (let’s see how long that last). But I am not going to lie, one of the most difficult parts of that decision was leaving the groups and social communities to which I belonged that kept me informed or in which I could ask questions. These groups and social communities have also served as inspiration for my research on networked learning and informal learning in online social communities. So having said all of that, I want to share some of my most recent publications on online social communities in this post.

Publications

Romero-Hall, E.J. (2022). Supporting Instructional Design Graduate Education through Networked Learning and Institutional Social Media. In Stefaniak, J. & Reese, R. (Eds.), The Instructional Designer’s Training Guide: Authentic Practices and Considerations for Mentoring ID and Ed Tech Professionals. Routledge.

This chapter is really a self reflection on the work that independent study students, interns, and I did while working at The University of Tampa connecting the current students, alumni, and public to IDT program using institutional social media accounts. But in all honestly, those practices were highly influences by the practices of other IDT programs who run their own institutional social media and research on networked learning. Here is a short blurb from the abstract: “In this paper, it is argued that social media represents a convivial technology in which individuals are engaging in networked learning. A review of the literature yielded examples of how institutional social media is been used in teaching and learning specifically in instructional design and technology programs. Insights from a case study about an instructional design and technology program that has been actively using different institutional social media to enhance the networked learning experience of the graduate students (and other stakeholders) in the program is shared as a way to connect research with practice.”

Gomez-Vasquez, L., Romero-Hall, E., Jaramillo Cherrez, N., Ghani, S., Rodriguez, A. & Ripine, C. (2022). Keeping Citizens Informed and Engaged During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using #YoMeInformoPMA: A Case from Latin America. Health Communication. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2022.2035509

This paper is dedicated to my motherland, Panama! When the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, I was on sabbatical in Panama. The days after a pandemic was declared were crazy. I have written a bit about it in this blog post. To keep myself informed of what was happening in Panama in response to the pandemic the Panamanian Health Ministry recommended that everyone use the hashtag #YoMeInformoPMA (which literally translated to: “I stay informed Panama”) in social media. As a researcher, it immediately triggered my desire to know: “What are people learning, discussing, and sharing using this hashtag?”. So I quickly emailed my collaborator Dr. Lina Gomez-Vasquez so that we could start tracking tweets with this hashtag. Huge thanks to Lina for leading the write up of this paper and co-authors for assisting with the analysis. Here is a short blurb from our abstract: “Using quantitative content, social network, and thematic analysis, this study examined 2,500 tweets from April to August 2020 that included the hashtag #YoMeInformoPMA. Panama’s Public Health Ministry created the #YoMeInformoPMA hashtag to keep citizens informed and engaged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research on social media use and implementation in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic, to inform and engage the public, is limited. Therefore, the aim of this investigation was to analyze strategies, themes, multimedia formats, key actors, and overall communications patterns of a Latin American health community hashtag. Our results determined that actors using the hashtag #YoMeInformoPMA mainly used an interactive strategy, a message that aims to promote casual conversations, advice, and problem-solving.“

Romero-Hall, E.J. (2021). Undergraduate students in online social communities: An exploratory investigation of deliberate informal learning practices. Journal of Applied Instructional Design, 10(3). https://dx.doi.org/10.51869/103/erh

We often do not realize that there are many instances of informal learning practices: implicit learning, reactive learning, and deliberate learning. In this paper, I focus on “deliberate learning refers to informal learning that occurs when an individual takes time to think about how and where to gather information.” This paper further analyses data that was collected as part of an internal grant sponsored by the University of Tampa on the use and participation of undergraduate students in social media (with a specific focus on teaching and learning). Here is a blurb from the abstract: “A total of 573 undergraduate students consented to participate in this investigation about deliberate informal learning practices using social media. Data analysis consisted of parametric and non-parametric statistical procedures. An analysis of the rankings provided by undergraduate students for the different deliberate informal learning activities performed in their most used social media (MUSM) showed that listening to podcasts related to their area of study, following/connecting with professional organizations, and connecting with leaders in their field of study were ranked higher than the other activities. The results also showed evidence of statistically significant differences in the ranking provided to the informal learning activities performed by undergraduate students in their least used social media (LUSM). Listening to podcasts related to their area of study, viewing videos that can assist with coursework, and following/connecting with professional organizations were ranked higher than the other deliberate informal learning activities.” This journal article is open access.

Guest Edited Special Issue

Romero-Hall, E.J. (2021). Informal Learning in Online Social Communities. Journal of Applied Instructional Design, 10(3), https://edtechbooks.org/jaid_10_3

First, huge thanks to all the amazing authors who submitted their work to this special issue and worked with me to make this a reality. Second, you should take the time to read these journal articles because each of them will enhance your teaching or advance your know of the learning design field. Last, this special issue includes an award winning article (AECT Culture, Learning, and Technology Division, McJulien Scholar Best Paper Award) published by Spencer P. Greenhalgh, Daniel G. Krutka, & Shannon M. Oltmann titled “Gab, Parler, and (Mis)educational Technologies: Reconsidering Informal Learning on Social Media Platforms“.

The Relocation Summer

I wrote my last post back in May after participating in OTESSA conference: The #OTESSA22 Recap and Resources and honestly I had no idea the craziness of a summer that I had ahead of me! It has been 1.5 months since we moved to Knoxville. The boxes are unpacked and we have settled. I think that has been the number one questioned I have received for the last month from friends and colleagues.

There is so much that has happened this summer, I really do not know if I can sum it up into a blog post but here are the highlights:

I completely deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts. Initially those were going to be temporary deactivations but every time I thought about reactivating my account, I hated the fact that I was going to fall into old habits or deal with the social media non-sense (one day I will write about this term “social media non-sense”). It has been challenging at times because there are connections that I really miss and some that I honestly cannot connect in any other ways (i.e., friends who live abroad). But, I am still undecided on whether I will rejoin again.
We no longer live in our Seminole Heights bungalow in Tampa. I can’t believe we sold our first house. The process of selling was difficult in so many ways. It was exhausting mentally. It took over our lives. I will miss our neighborhood. Seminole Heights will always have a special place in my heart (i.e., it is the house were I saw my son take his first steps and the neighborhood he learn to ride his bike) but I am happy that the house sold allowing us to move and fully focus on our new chapter in Knoxville.
I became a U.S. citizen. I remember arriving in the United States January 2004 and landing in Kansas City to attend school at Emporia State University. That was an absolutely crazy adventure. I took the Greyhound bus from KC to Emporia (a two hour ride) and when we arrived in Emporia I was dropped off at a gas station. I was like “What the hell? Where is the bus terminal?” I asked the gas station employee to please call a cab for me and he was like “Well there is only one cab in town so know that it will be a while” (Yes, this was life pre-UBER, imagine that!). I really should write more about my adventures as an international student. Anyways, glad I completed all the requirements and applied for citizenship. The best part is that I get to vote!
I did the bare minimum in terms of scholarship. Instead I focused on the relocation process and I am so happy I didn’t kill myself trying to do a million things. Early in May I was contacted about a project that “must be written over the summer because the institution was going to pay us $$ over the summer to write the paper”. My response was: “Well the institution can keep their $$ because I am not about to comprise my sanity over a paper I can write in the Fall”. Best decision ever!
I did teach a two-week course on “culturally competent design for online learning” as part of a grant funded project “Online Ready” by colleague Dr. Lucy Green and colleagues. It was so much fun designing the course and launching it. It was an online asynchronous course for K-12 school librarians. This was the first iteration of the course now we get to address the feedback and launch it again next year with a different cohort.
There was minimum travel this summer but in the road trip to Knoxville we did get to explore two other major Tennessee cities: Chattanooga and Nashville. Definitely visiting again!