Running header: CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

Critical Pedagogy in Practice and Research syllabus

Emely Medina-Rodriguez
Loyola University of Chicago
ELPS 430 001
Dr. Patrick Green

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

Critical Pedagogy in Practice and Research syllabus
After this course is over my big dream is that students can understand the fundamentals
of critical pedagogy in research and practice. I created this syllabus for 30 upper level ungraduate
students from a bilingual background. I decided to formulate the syllabus for this group because
I'm interested in become a professor of education for undergraduates students at the University of
Puerto Rico (UPR) where students are usually given reading in English and Spanish. This topic
"Critical Pedagogy" has its roots on Latin American scholars and theorist which I wanted to
integrate to this syllabus. This format of including English and Spanish reading is not uncommon
in any course at UPR. I chose upper division undergraduate teacher preparation students as the
group I wanted to emphasize because these students will have more opportunity than most to use
this knowledge in their classrooms. Nevertheless I design the class to be open as an elective for
anyone else, specially students in social work, humanities or social sciences. Keeping in mind
that these students will be more in contact with communities and spaces where they can develop
open dialogue groups using critical pedagogy. In their future roles they can extrapolate their
learnings of the class to their leadership positions. Students will understand the importance and
usefulness of critical pedagogy for the transformation of institutions in society.
I created this syllabus taking into consideration how classes are usually distributed at
UPR, thus the class will meet twice a week for two session of one hour and half each week. This
course is formulated to be a live instruction class, this course will also make use of online
resources but not exclusively. This course is divergent in nature is expected that student learn the
basic concepts of culture, ideology, and oppression before exploring more deeply the topic of
critical pedagogy. Students are expected to invest time in practicing in a formal setting such as a
classroom, a community and in the creation of a research project. This course is intended for

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

students to acquire skills to create their own critical thinking exercises about any social justice
topic of their interest. Students will be presented with new techniques to develop their own
transformational learning experiences in practice, whether that be the classroom of the
community or in a participatory action research project.
The status of most students at upper level undergraduate classes is of mostly full-time
students with part-time jobs, some of them might have their own families, but most are living
with their parents. The general goal I expect students to have when taking my class is the
students' desire to open up conversation about environmental injustices, racial, gender and
income discrimination in their work place or community. They should also be interested in
learning about participatory action research where they can explore and question some social
justice assumptions by utilizing critical pedagogy with their participants. The students' reasons
for participating in my class could run from simple curiosity about critical pedagogy or a genuine
concern about gender, or racial stereotypes, racial and sexual violence, environmental awareness,
income inequality and/or community development. Students prior experience and prior
knowledge about critical pedagogy can vary, because the design of the syllabus is for students to
explore topics on social justice. The general attitude students in this class should have is an
interest in developing critical pedagogy exercises and action research project. The learning styles
of students can vary because the syllabus I created takes into account the different learning styles
of students by creating different opportunities for them to understand the concepts, such as
videos, reading and working individually and in groups.
Some of my characteristics are perfect for giving a class in this topic, but my lack of
experience in the classroom might affect my teaching status. For this class the instructor should
have experience in participatory action research and practice using critical pedagogy in a

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

community or classroom setting. The instructor should be able to present a body of literature
relevant to the topic and be able to generate exercises modeling the pedagogy. I have never given
a complete course on this topic, but I have given conferences and workshops on this and other
topics. My experience with critical pedagogy was developed creating dialogue groups in
communities and specially in the creation of participatory action research projects in college
access topics. My confidence in giving this class lies in my understanding and practice of critical
pedagogy in the community and in research. My commitment to social justice has given me a
true interest in this topic and its usefulness in creating open dialogue spaces for people to explore
and discuss social injustices in a challenging but comfortable way.
I design this class following Fink (2003) taxonomy of significant learning. By creating an
integrated syllabus where activities and learning outcomes are interrelated. For example, for the
foundational knowledge learning goal, where the students will learn "particular data, concepts,
relationships and, perspectives" on critical pedagogy I organized several resources in general
topics students must know before getting to the topic of critical pedagogy (p. 36). For the first six
classes students will be exploring the concepts of culture, ideology, liberation and
oppression. These concepts are essential in understanding the purpose of critical pedagogy. I will
start this class by presenting students with a very accessible graphic book in Spanish named
Gramsci para principiantes (Gramsci for beginners) which develops the concept of culture within
a social justice perspective. This class is follow by in class discussion about what Gramsci
described as culture. For the purpose of developing foundational knowledge students must also
read an extract of Gramsci's prison notes about his concept of culture. Building foundational
knowledge is going to be an ongoing process in this class, where documentaries, books and book
chapters will be use to reinforce learning. To have a better understanding of how much students

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

are understanding these concepts I included discussion in small groups and critical pedagogy
exercises about the topics. Students will have the opportunity to reflect about this new
knowledge in a groups setting but also in personal reflections about topics such as racism, sexism
and classism.
Students will be able to apply this new foundational knowledge in multiple settings. For
example, I have design this class for students to be integrated into in-class exercises created
based on critical pedagogy where students will be challenged to analyzed their lived experiences
using concepts such as sexist behavior, institutional racism and others. Students will also need
to reflect about these concepts by preparing a personal reflections where their describe their
social justice personal ethos using class readings. For this reflection students must identify a
social justice issue that relates to them or their community and analyze this issue through the
class readings and materials. Fink (2003) describes managing complex projects as the use of
skills learned in class to "organize and coordinate several tasks as part of one major project" (p.
39). For this class students must create two projects for which they need to use several if not all
the knowledge learned in class. The first project will be a mid-term project where students need
to create a workshop for their future workplace or for their community. Students must design an
open dialogue workshop where they must choose a social justice issue to develop during the
workshop. For the second project they must apply the basics concepts of critical pedagogy to
create a participatory action research project for a social justice issue of their choice.
Students will create a proposal which must include a justification using class reading and a
critical pedagogy exercises used for collecting data for the research project.
Because critical pedagogy is concern with transformational dialogue and actions towards
social justice, students will need to relate pedagogy and social justice in this class. Fink (2003)

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

recommends interdisciplinary learning which is useful in a class like this one (p. 42).
Intersectionality of social justice issues will be discussed in the classroom by presenting
concepts from different resources. For example, students will participate in a critical pedagogy
exercise about sexism in the media, where each group of students must identify sexist references
or behaviors in popular songs. This exercise will allow students to understand the concept of
culture and sexism at the same time, connecting culture (popular songs) with a social issue
(sexism). This exercise will also serve students as a learning community where they can relate
this new knowledge with their own lives. I chose the assignments for this course to integrate the
experiences of students in the classroom with their future roles in their community or their future
workplace. I also chose self-reflections such as written assignments where the students are
encourage to reflect on how this new knowledge serves them to analyze their own context and
social positionality.
Integrating learning concepts and applying them in the real world, is important for this
class, but a topic such as critical pedagogy must also encourage students to see the world through
the eyes of others, specially others living in oppression. The students first assignment is design
for students to identify social issues in their lives, either in their community or workplace. The
readings I chose will be useful in describing the phenomena they selected. Understanding the
concepts of culture, ideology, sexism, classism and racism could deepen their understanding of
what they encounter in their lives. In participating and creating open dialogue spaces by using
the skills and knowledge critical pedagogy offers, students will be exposed to a multiplicity of
ideas coming from their peers or their communities. Critical pedagogys problem-posing
questions challenge students into critically analyzing their own ideas about the world as well as
others ideas that might be present in the media or society. I included several group activities in

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

class where students will be participating in critical discussion of social issues such as
stereotypes, community building and solidarity. Hopefully these discussions, activities,
assignments and reading will awake students curiosity about social justice, and how to build
dialogue spaces toward transforming social inequalities. I agree with Finks (2003) ideas about
caring and the human dimension in learning, students must develop a sense of responsibility
from the knowledge they acquire in this course.
The fundamental skill I want students to acquire from this class is critical thinking. This
is why I included assignments such as creating their own research proposal about a social justice
issue. This assignment is meant for students to critically question a social issue in specific
communities. For example, a student interested in sexism in her gym class, will be able to create
a sound methodological argument in why an action research model is important to understand
this phenomena and try to transform a social inequality such as being sexually harassed in gym
class. Unfortunately, giving the scope of this class, students will not take about their research
ideas, but will have a complete research proposal if they decide to further their study. Fink
(2003) brings me the idea that knowledge has two dimensions, the theoretical and the
methodological and the instructor must utilize both so that students can learn how to learn or
construct their own meaning out of the knowledge they learned in class (p. 53). This is exactly
what I want students of this course to take with them after this class, knowledge that will serve
them to understand the world, critically analyze it and have the skills to transform it.
This exercise has given me the chance to acknowledge my own knowledge about this
topic. I have been devoted in trying to build this syllabus so that students can develop a concern
with social issues and at the same time work towards transforming social inequalities. I used
Nilson (2010) as a guide to include in my syllabus structure and organization. But Fink (2003)

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

readings gave me the pedagogical methods and know-hows to facilitate learning for many
learning styles. I took into consideration students learning styles when constructing discussions
and assignments. Students in this class will have multiple opportunities to understand the
fundamental knowledge and to create new knowledge themselves. In my life as a student there
where vary few classes as the one I created for this course, hopefully in the future students will
have the opportunity to participate in this class, and me the opportunity to instruct it. My biggest
challenge in this assignment was to choose the materials I wanted to include into the syllabus.
Nevertheless, the feedback received in class allowed me to refine my ideas.

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

Critical Pedagogy in Practice and Research
Emely Medina-Rodriguez
emedinarodriguez@luc.edu
787-458-5555
Office hours:
Office number:
Upper level undergraduate students
30 students
Bi-lingual speakers (English and Spanish)
14 week of class (meeting twice a week for hour and half)
1. Learning goals:
I. Identify the concepts of culture, ideology, oppression and, liberation.
II. Explore how oppression operate through culture
III. Demonstrate knowledge about the differences between banking
education and critical pedagogy
IV. Create critical pedagogy exercises about social issues
V. Critically analyze banking education
VI. Identify the role of critical education in social change
VII. Connect the concept of critical pedagogy and group dialogue
VIII. Value the perspectives of multiple social positionalities of peers
IX. Identify their social positionality and implication in their lives
X. Identify themselves as agents of social change in their communities
XI. Value solidarity as pedagogical opportunity
XII. Identify sources of social oppression in their community context
XIII. Create a research a research proposal using participatory action research
methodology
XIV. Generate problem-posing questions in a variety of spaces for dialogue
XV. Work in groups and in collaboration with peers
2. Assignments:
I. (15 pts) Reflection about oppressive behaviors: Create a four page
(double-spaced, 12 point font) personal ethos narrative about social justice
by identifying oppressive behavior in your live and community. You must
identify an issue in your community where you see oppressive behaviors.
Explain this issue using class readings and vocabulary.
1. Clearly identifies a social issue in their live or community
2. Utilizes class reading to analyze the social issue
3. Reflects on their own ethos about social justice
II. (35 pts) Class or workshop: Create a class or a workshop design to open
up dialogue about an oppressive social behaviors using critical pedagogy
exercises. You most create a class or a workshop with your group of about
one hour in length using critical pedagogy methods to open up dialogue
about a social issue. You must find a group of people that you think must
discuss this topic and report in 5-7 pages your plan and your outcomes.
1. Identifies a social issue

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

2. Identifies a population
3. Generates a clear topic, objective and, technique for the exercise
4. Creates a procedure for the exercise
5. Identifies possibilities and limits of the exercise
6. Integrates peer feedback
III. (35 pts) Research proposal: Construct a research proposal paper about a
social issue using problem-posing questions. You should write qualitative
a paper of approximately 15 pages (double-spaced, 12 point font) that
draws on at least 6 readings we have covered during the semester to
envision your own research project.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

1.

Clearly identifies research question

Identifies literature about research topic
Creates a justification for this research
Identifies research method (focus group recommended)
Create open-ended question using problem-posing questions
Uses class readings
Create rational for using problem-posing questions for topic and
population
8. Integrates peer feedback
IV. (15 pts) End of class reflection: Write a 3 page long reflection about using
critical pedagogy in your assignments in class and your participating con
critical pedagogy exercises throughout the class.
1. Reflects upon their understanding of critical pedagogy in practice
and research
Grading and assessment rubric:

Class
Assignments

Missed the target:

Missing stuff:

Almost there:

Job well done!

Student doesnt

Student has a post

Student excuses self

Student goes to

present an excuse to

hoc excuse for

for missing class

class and

miss class and

missing class and

before class begins

participates all

seldom participates

fairly participates in

and participates in

discussions

in class discussion
Student doesnt use

class discussion
Student doesnt use

most discussions
Student uses almost

Student uses all the

resources from class

most resources from

all resources for

resources discussed

and does not creates

class and creates

class and creates

in class, creates

original work

original work

original work

original work and

complete
assignments in due
time

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

A 90-100
B 89-80
C 79-64
D 65- 45
F 44- 0

4.

Class Schedule

Topic:
Week 1
Culture
Week 2

Readings/material:
Gramsci for

Activity:
Hegemony exercise

beginners
Gramsci (1995) 323-

Small group

Culture

377: Prison notes

Movie: Perverted

Ideology

guide to ideology
Reflection Day

Ideology exercise

Freire (1970):

Group Discussion

Week 3
Week 4

discussion

Ideology
Week 5
OppressionLiberation
Week 6
Liberation-

Chapter 1
Book: Paley (2001),

Small group

Marketing

discussion

Oppression

Democracy: P.

Week 7

Reflection Video

In-class

(class feedback)

Assignments

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

workshop
Week 8

Reflection Day

Sexism

Exercise
Problematize sexism

Week 9

Godreau (2008)

through songs
Small group

Racism
Week 10

Slippery semantics
Marx a vuelto videos

reflection
Group reflection

Classism
Week 11

Movie : An

Movie

Mother earth
Week 12

inconvenient truth
Reflection Day

Exercise: Who

Oppression
through culture
Week 13

benefits?
Auto-reflection Day

Oppression
through culture
Week 14
Bankary
education
Week 15

Freire (1970):

In-class
workshop

In-Class activity

oppressive behaviors

Group discussion

Chapter 2
Teacher-Student

Exercise: Bring your

knowledge to class

Moro (2014) 55-63

Critical
education
Week 17

Reflection about

assignment due

Bankary
education
Week 16

Stereotypes

Group discussion in
small groups

Class or workshop
assignment
(feedback)

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

Week 18
The

Romero, Arce &

role Cammarota (2009) A

Small group
discussion

education in social barrio pedagogy

change
Week 19

Nagda (2007)

Dialogue

Group Discussion

Intergroup Dialogue:
A CriticalDialogic Approach to
Learning

Week 20

Reflection Day

Exercise: The village

Arthur (2010)

Group Discussion

The role of
dialogue in critical
pedagogy
Week 21
Social

Interracial activism

positioning
Week 22

Auto-reflection Day

Social

Agency

Giroux (2008):
and Chapter 3

social change
Week 24
Agency
social change

assignment due
Exercise: Discover
your social

Positionality
Week 23

Movie: The suffragist

and

Class or workshop

positionality
Small groups
discussion
Group Discussion

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

Week 25

Hooks (2000)

Small group

Final class Reflection

Solidarity
Week 26

Chapter 3
Research Proposal

discussion

Due

In-class
workshop
Week 27

(feedback)
Final Research
Proposal

Week 28

Presentations
Final Research

Research proposal

Proposal

assignment due

Presentations
5.

Class reading:

Arthur, M. (2010). Interracial Activism and the Development of Ethnic Identity. Social
Movement Studies, 9(4), 475-479. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2010.522316
Freire, P. (2000) [1970]. Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Giroux, H. (1997). Pedagogy and the politics of hope. Boulder, Colo.: WestviewPress.
Godreau, I. (2009). Slippery Semantics: Race talk and everyday use of racial terminology in
Puerto Rico. Centro Journal, 10(2), 5-33.
Gramsci, A. (1995) "The Study of Philosophy"--Further Selections from the Prison Notebooks.
University of Minnesota Press.
hooks, b. (2000). Feminism is for everybody. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Kohan, N. (2003). Gramsci para principiantes. Buenos Aires: Era Naciente.
Moro, W. (2014). Lecturas de Discusin: Educacin Popular: Un acercamiento a una prctica
libertaria (pp. 55-63). La Nueva Escuela.
Nagda, B., & Gurin, P. (2007). Intergroup dialogue: A critical-dialogic approach to learning
about difference, inequality, and social justice. New Directions for Teaching And
Learning, 2007(111), 35-45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tl.284

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH SYLLABUS

Julia Paley Accountable Democracy: Citizens Impact on Public Decision Making in
Postdictatorship Chile. American Ethnologist 31(4), 2004: 497-513.
Romero, A., Arce, S., & Cammarota, J. (2009). A Barrio pedagogy: identity, intellectualism,
activism, and academic achievement through the evolution of critically compassionate
intellectualism. Race Ethnicity and Education, 12(2), 217-233.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613320902995483
6. Class policies:
Students are required to attend class and collaborate with peers outside class.
Assignments must be completed on time, if there is an impossibility to do so students should
email the professor for a two day extension. Any student with special accommodation must
notify it to the professor at the beginning of class. Academic honesty is expected in every
assignment for this class.