Providing Students with knowledge: Critical Communication Pedagogy

Brenda Allen (200) discusses the challenges of practicing critical communication pedagogy. She acknowledges that it is not only challenging for the teacher, but also taxing on the student. Allen states, faculty will also expect students to learn and understand complex concepts such as hegemony, ideology, privilege, praxis, and social construction. Students may struggle to understand content while also processing their responses and reactions as well as their peers and professors. Directions: In order to expose students to critical communication pedagogy- have a brief classroom discussion about this teaching ideology how you plan on infusing this teaching approach into your classroom. Next, pass out the list of terms below and have a brief discussion about the terms and their meaning.

1. Hegemony: the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group. 2. Ideology: The body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture. 3. Privilege: Such an advantage, immunity, or right held as a prerogative of status or rank, and exercised to the exclusion or detriment of others. 4. Praxis: action or practice 5. Social construction: any phenomenon "invented" or "constructed" by participants in a particular culture or society, existing because people agree to behave as if it exists or follow certain conventional rules. One example of a social construct is social status.

At the end of the semester, ask them the following questions: 1. How do you view these terms differently than you did in the beginning of the semester? 2. How do these terms relate to teaching and learning? 3. Can you apply these terms outside of classroom learning? How so?

hegemony, ideology, privilege, praxis, and social construction.