Summer 22 Inclusive Syllabus Portfolio | Michelle Durden

 

SOC 126: Sociology of Gender

Course Description

Sociology of Gender is an upper division GE Area D course and an elective for the major.  It is currently taught as an asynchronous online course with 120 students.  Previously it was taught as a lecture course.

Before 

My syllabus was not very accessible.

It was too crowded, the tables needed headers, and it was not optimized for screen readers. 

The learning outcomes were not measurable by Quality Matters standards.

The language was also not welcoming to students. 

Motivation for Redesign of your Syllabi

I have been lecturing for about a quarter of a century.  And in those two and a half decades, academia has changed, and so have our students.  However, my syllabus had not.  After taking this training, the old syllabus seems like a relic from the past.  I wanted it to be less like a contract, and more like a welcoming introduction to the course.

For example, the email and office hours section was very functional but not welcoming.

Email:

message within Canvas (preferred)

durden@csus.edu (please indicate your class is Soc 126)

Online Office Hours:

Mondays 12:00 to 1:30 pm and Tuesdays 3:00-4:30 pm

via email, Canvas Messages, or Zoom appointment

I am also available by appointment.

The syllabus merely listed the required texts.

Required Texts

• Lisa Wade.   Gender:  Ideas, Interactions, Institutions, 2nd ed. WW Norton & Co.  ISBN: 978-0393667967 (MUST BE THE 2nd Edition)
• Arlene Stein. 2018. Unbound:  Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity.  Pantheon Books.  ISBN: 978-1-5247-4745-9
• Lisa Wade with Douglas Hartmann and Christopher Uggen.   Assigned:  Life With Gender. WW Norton & Co. ISBN: 978-0-28445-4. (Listed as Assigned.)
• Other readings listed in the syllabus will be only available online on Canvas.

My introduction was short and not very personable or welcoming.

Professor Durden has been teaching sociology at Sacramento State since 2008.  Her interests include gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, social psychology and the self, and writing in the social sciences.

The learning outcomes were not measurable.

Student Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate an understanding of sociology of gender, including the major principles, issues, and arguments.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the diversity in identities and experiences within gender categories.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the role of human diversity in human society, for example, race, ethnicity, class, age, ability/disability, sexual identity, gender and gender expression.
• Explain and critically examine gendered social dynamics and issues in their historical and cultural contexts.

After:

I revised the syllabus to be welcoming, inclusive, and more accessible.

Accessibility

I started with a score of 69% and increased it to 99%.

• I added headers to tables
• I changed the headers from light blue, which was the default, to black
• I increased the spacing to 1.5 lines and the margins to 1.3" to provide more white space and make it easier to read.
• I improved the syllabus for screen readers.  I took out the blank lines and numerous colons, which the screen reader would read out loud as "blank" and "colon".  I also took out dashes: B- became B minus, and date ranges changed from 24-31 to 24 to 31, for example.
• Instead of using bold to emphasize words and phrases, I used the emphasis and strong templet formats.

Inclusivity and Welcoming Tone

• I added an introduction to myself and my interests.
• I added a description of the textbooks and why they are assigned.
• I added a welcome section that introduces some of the changes in popular and sociological conceptions of gender in the last 30 years.
• I added some inspirational introductory quotes from people of various genders, races, and ethnicities.
  
• I changed "office hours" to "student hours" and added a description.
• I added grade descriptions.
• I added more welcoming language to the section on Late Assignments and Extensions.

For example, the email and office hours section is more welcoming.

Communication and Student Hours

message within Canvas (preferred)

durden@csus.edu (please indicate your class is Soc 126)

I welcome you to communicate with me with me during the semester via Canvas Messages, email, and/or Zoom appointment.  I have set aside Mondays from noon to 1:30 pm and Tuesdays from 1:00-2:30 pm for this purpose.  During these times I will respond to messages as they come in, and I will be available for Zoom appointments.  I can also meet via Zoom outside of these hours by appointment.  To make an appointment, please send me a message.

For example, the syllabus describes required texts and why they are assigned.

Required Texts

• Lisa Wade.  2019.  Gender:  Ideas, Interactions, Institutions, 2nd ed. WW Norton & Co.  ISBN: 978-0393667967 (MUST BE THE 2nd Edition).  Purchase or rent paperback or ebook from the bookstore or Amazon.  (NOTE:  It will NOT work on Kindle for e-readers.)  This is the most widely used text on Sociology of Gender.  You can also order an e-book directly from WW Norton. ISBN: 978-0-393-67428-6.

• Arlene Stein. 2018. Unbound:  Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity.  Pantheon Books.  ISBN: 978-1-5247-4745-9.  Purchase paperback from the bookstore or Amazon.  An e-book is also available at Amazon.  This book is intended for non-academics and introduces students to ideas of transgenderism and gender identity.  “Stein shows how members of this young transgender generation, along with other gender dissidents, are refashioning their identities and challenging others’ conceptions of who they are” (Stein, inside cover)
• Lisa Wade with Douglas Hartmann and Christopher Uggen.   Assigned:  Life With Gender. WW Norton & Co. ISBN: 978-0-28445-4. Purchase paperback from the bookstore or Amazon.  This book is a selection of short readings from The Society Pages, which is the largest collection of sociological material on the web.  These short readings by a wide variety of authors are included to increase the diversity of voices and provide new insights into people’s varied experiences of gender.
• Other readings listed in the syllabus will be only available online on Canvas.

For example, my introduction is more personable and welcoming.

Welcome to Sociology of Gender

I have been teaching sociology at Sacramento State since 2008, and have been teaching about gender for over two decades.  In that time, the way people think and talk about gender has changed dramatically.  It has been fascinating to see how American ideas about gender have evolved.  For instance, the assumption that there are two genders -- men and women -- has changed to a recognition that there is instead a wide variety of gender identities and gender expressions.  Additionally, people have developed new words to name new gender ideas.   For instance, the term cisgender was developed to refer to people who identify as the same gender they were assigned at birth, (in contrast to folks who are transgender).  It is common these days to use “they” as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun.  And 21 states now allow people to identify as a non-binary gender on official identification.

For example, I also added inspirational quotes.

“I am obsessed with becoming a woman comfortable in her own skin” -- Sandra Cisneros, writer and poet

 “The mind of the man and the mind of the woman is the same, but this business of living makes women use their minds in ways that men don't even have to think about.”  -- Sociologist Patricia Hill Collins in Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment Links to an external site.

“I think trans women, and trans people in general, show everyone that you can define what it means to be a man or woman on your own terms. A lot of what feminism is about is moving outside of roles and moving outside of expectations of who and what you’re supposed to be to live a more authentic life.” -- Laverne Cox, actress, television producer, and LGBTQ activist

 “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” -- Former President Barack Obama

Learning Outcomes

• I revised the learning outcomes to be measurable based on QM standards.

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Identify and apply concepts used in the sociology of gender, including the major theories, issues, and arguments.
2. Show that there is diversity in identities and experiences within gender categories.
3. Show how different gender groups have contributed to human diversity in society.
4. Identify, explain, and critically examine gendered social dynamics and issues in their historical and cultural contexts.

Techniques Incorporated Into Redesign

I wanted to make it more accessible.  The activity that was most influential was listening to how a screen reader read a syllabus that was not formatted, and how distracting it was from understanding the content.

Assessment of Syllabus Redesign 

The syllabus is much more accessible and welcoming.  The new learning objectives align better with sociology department objectives.

Reflection: Challenges and Lessons Learned

I think one of the biggest challenges for me was balancing the different functions of the syllabus as a learning contract, a roadmap for course materials and assignments, and a welcoming introduction to the course.

A second challenge was balancing a professional tone with a welcoming tone.  The welcoming tone often seemed informal and not professional to me at first.

One of my favorite changes to the syllabus was describing the books and why I assigned them.  And also adding in inspirational quotes.  Although in re-reading them, I think that I need to add more masculine voices as well.  

One of the biggest lessons learned was how to use the templates in Word better.  I had already worked on using proper headings, but I learned about templates for emphasizing language as well.  I also learned how important it is to break up huge blocks of text and to provide enough blank space in a document so that it is not so dense.  While this is important for paper syllabi, it is even more important for syllabi that students access on a device such as their phone.

Faculty Biography

                                         

Faculty Biography

Michelle Durden was born in Sacramento and grew up on 40 acres near the small town of Ione, California.  She completed her undergraduate work at the University of California Santa Cruz, where she began as a physics major but soon discovered her passion for sociology and social justice.  She attended graduate school at the University of California San Diego.   She worked as a lecturer at San Jose State University from 2003 to 2013, and has been teaching in the Sociology Department at Sacramento State since 2008.  Her areas of interest include social psychology, identity and the self, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, popular culture, and writing in the social sciences.

                                                        

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