A little more about your class:

I teach a class called Costume, Fashion, Cultural Studies. It is discipline based (learning to understand fashion and costume) but also broad and theoretical. As a pluralism & diversity class many non-majors take it.

The issue you’re addressing:

My goal is to improve student engagement in this non-major/required class for many students. How do they find a footing and how do they stay engaged is an issue I wanted to address.

Tell us a bit more about your teaching innovation:

We read about Stuart Hall and the beginning of Cultural Studies. Fashion Studies is a new field and a subfield of greater cultural studies. How do we study outside the archive using a social justice thought process? We created our own archive. Students uploaded photos of themselves and other students responded. Through this quick in-class session they learned how to write in a low-stakes manner. Using a feed forward method from Joe Hirsch, nothing is right or wrong, just a development of thought for each individual.

Your initial takeaways: 

Opening the door for student contribution in an active way allows for student engagement.

Suggested “podcast pairing”:

Joe Hirsch on “Moving from feedback to feedforward” (The Cult of Pedagogy podcast)