Constructing and Reconstructing a Critical Discourse and Pedagogy of Techno-Knowledge

Critical hybrid pedagogies: A self-study inquiry into faculty practices in a blended Educational Leadership EdD program

“…In the current neoliberal context of higher education, universities have faced state budget cuts and rising costs. As they have turned their attention to efforts that will maximize faculty time and student tuition dollars (Porfilio and Yu, 2006), online programs have proliferated across the nation (Schneider and Smith, 2014). While such programs may be attractive to universities for multiple reasons, e-learning research over the past two decades has yielded mixed results on the effectiveness of such models (e.g.…”

“…For programs that take an explicitly critical focus like ours, we also are attuned to the challenges of online instruction to support social justice-focused learning experiences (e.g. Caruthers and Friend, 2014; Schneider and Smith, 2014; Wang and Torrisi-Steele, 2015). In particular, online instruction may perpetuate isolated, individualistic learning patterns antithetical to the dialogic interactions needed to problematize commonsense thinking, pedagogies, and power relations (Baran et al., 2011, 2013).…”

Educating Educational Leaders in a Blended Professional Doctorate Program: An Initial Action Research Inquiry

“…Accordingly, programs offering full or partial online learning experiences have proliferated (Schneider & Smith, 2014). While such programs may offer universities the ability to mediate some of the damage from shrinking state appropriations and rising costs, e-learning research over the past two decades has yielded mixed results on the effectiveness of online and hybrid learning models (Means, Toyama, Murphy, & Baki, 2013;Russell, 1999;Zhao, Lei, Lai, & Tan, 2005).…”

“…Recent researchers have also raised questions regarding the capacity for online or hybrid instruction to support programs with an explicit aim of raising students' critical consciousness of educational issues such as schools' reproduction of societal inequalities (e.g., Caruthers & Friend, 2014;Schneider & Smith, 2014;Wang & TorrisiSteele, 2015). Some have argued that most teachers of online or hybrid courses continue to espouse more traditional teaching methods characterized by transmission models (Baran, Correia, & Thompson, 2011), which result in the perpetuation of teacher-student power imbalances (Baran, Correia, & Thompson, 2013) and promote learning as an individualistic endeavor (Schneider & Smith, 2014).…”

“…Some have argued that most teachers of online or hybrid courses continue to espouse more traditional teaching methods characterized by transmission models (Baran, Correia, & Thompson, 2011), which result in the perpetuation of teacher-student power imbalances (Baran, Correia, & Thompson, 2013) and promote learning as an individualistic endeavor (Schneider & Smith, 2014). Others, however, suggest that critical online pedagogy is possible (Wang & Torrisi-Steele, 2015), and such pedagogy can become "a form of political intervention entangled in a broader project of transformation and social justice" (Caruthers & Friend, 2014, p. 15) if teachers deliberately utilize technology as a tool for dialectic transformation (Schneider & Smith, 2014). These researchers have suggested that such critical online pedagogies might include critically framed discussions and self-reflection (Wang & Torrisi-Steele, 2015), digital storytelling (Guajardo, Oliver, Valadez, Cantu, and Guajardo, 2011), and collaborative writing and coproduced texts (Caruthers & Friend, 2014).…”