“Yet, just by adopting DT in the classroom doesn’t guarantee that the outcome of the educational process is going to be effective. Professors should consider the course learning objectives and reflect on the usefulness of DT tools to achieve those objectives.”
Yes! I love this! Technology as a tool – use it when it’s helpful, don’t when it’s not…

“Effective pedagogy must be framed within social, economical, and by default, political contexts. Student learning can be more profound if we, pedagogists, guide students to use their knowledge base, curiosity, and critical thinking to break limitations of our local community, countries, regions, and the world.”
Yes! I so agree with this. I am aware most of my students will not go on to graduate school, so I am thinking about how to educate them to influence the world.

Yay! Just yay!
That is all. :)

“I’m concerned that that your comment potentially stems from internal anger and deep rooted problems with majorities.”

So there’s a term for what you (I believe unintentionally) just did here, it’s called Gaslighting – attempting to erode another person’s reality (in this case that I experience oppression) by telling them that what they’re experiencing just isn’t so. If done often enough, the person being gaslighted starts to question their own sanity. Gaslighting is one way in which those in power continue to hold power over others.

“I could careless (sic) if someone is glowing neon-green, if you’re different awesome, but again I don’t care, it doesn’t affect my succeeding in life.” That’s because you’re in the privileged group most of the time.

Even if someone is physically in the minority (say 1 man in 30 women or 1 white person in 15 POC), that still doesn’t mean that they lose their privilege as a white guy doesn’t. The privileged group doesn’t have to think about how their identities affect their potential success in life, they’re going to continue to do well, because they’re in the privileged group.” That’s how privilege works.

(It’s also not anyone’s fault they were born into privilege, so feeling guilty about having it isn’t necessary and in fact usually counterproductive — but that’s another topic all together.)

“[I]n engineering (a science) if people are having discussions about sexuality preferences, gender, skin color, or anything else, then something is seriously wrong, this is no longer science.”

As I said in my earlier response to you, people in the minority position are thinking, talking, living these discussions all the time . The way people do science, or any other discipline for that matter, is colored by who they are. I can’t choose to be a Sociologist one day, a woman the next, a white person the third day and a lesbian the fourth. I am a white, female, lesbian Sociologist all the time and at all times. My experiences inform how I do my work and the same is true in the hard sciences.

I’ll grant you that the science itself should (maybe) be divorced from these types of biases and the results should try be neutral; reality says that’s not possible. By simply doing science we make decisions about what data to include, how to attempt to solve a problem, what experts we go to for advice – and those will all show up in the data at least a little bit.

I really am looking forward to a productive discussion and I believe I have as much to learn about this stuff as anybody, indeed, I have 2 ears and one mouth for a reason. Conversations like this are hard and uncomfortable at times – it’s when I make a point to radically listen to others that I learn the most.

I’m going to guess that maybe you’ve never felt oppressed because you tend to be in the dominant group (white, male and/or straight). Ask any female in your department if she’s felt oppressed, or any international student, and I’m betting the answer would be yes.

Of course you’re “happy that [you] couldn’t personally recall a situation in my academic experience where [you] felt oppressed.” It doesn’t feel good to feel oppressed. But the fact that you’ve never personally experienced oppression is why we need to have these conversations and do the readings we did for this week.

“I find it hard to understand why we feel discussing these problems solve any problems or potentially create new ones by inviting students to even think about. ” Here’s the thing. Students in the minority think about “these problems” ALL.THE.TIME. So we’re not having these discussions for their benefit, we’re having them for yours and mine (as a white, middle-class graduate student). These conversations can be uncomfortable to have, but they’re so, so important to have anyway.

“[I] wonder who actually has to be lectured about this at any college age.” Those people in the majority!!! Again, we don’t have these diversity trainings for my benefit as a lesbian or as a woman, trust me, I feel mini-oppressions (also known as microaggressions) everyday. We do these so that people in positions of privilege (including myself again as a white, middle-class grad student) can learn ways we can be more inclusive to all people with whom we interact – especially our students.
It’s incredibly important that we come into our clasrooms and labs and buildings and meetings with other grad students armed with as much diversity training as possible so we don’t (intentionally or unintentionally) make someone feel uncomfortable by something we do or say. That’s called being an ally
Allies are going to make mistakes — just the other day one of my colleagues brought to my attention that an in-class activity I had my students do could probably be seen as (unintentionally) racially insensitive — but that’s how we learn. I’ve since had to figure out how to own up to my mistake with the class and move forward. It’s like Maya Angelou says, “When you know better, do better.”

As future scholars and professors and researchers, this week’s readings were incredibly important. I’m just sorry it sounds like you didn’t get much out of them…

I was sooooo not cool in high school, so I feel you. And being authentic has its advantages, so I agree with what you’ve said in this post. It’s hard enough to be me everyday, I can’t imagine trying to be someone else for a few hours a week.

Just yesterday, on a conversation about race/racism/being an ally, I told my class that “I am probably the whitest white person you will ever meet, but…” and went on to explain how being an ally to groups you don’t belong to works.
It is a fine line. I’m naturally goofy, but I will not hesitate to get my class back in line if I have to. My policies were called strict on the first day of class, I take a no nonsense approach to things in my syllabus. but I still manage to be personable and give students real-time feedback that will help them mature and hopefully leave my class just a little bit more grown up than when they walked in.

Yep. Lectures are unavoidable, but I can certainly change how I deliver them. With a small class, it’s easy to see who is and isn’t paying attention, in a large class that would be harder. I like what’s been shared in class about using cell phones to communicate with the instructor, but I also think there is an element of self-directed learning that students must do. If a lecture is boring, too bad. My job as an instructor is not always to entertain you, but to give you useful information you can use for the rest of the course.
Life isn’t always interesting, but somehow, as adults, we are expected to make the most of it. I think we coddle students too much at times by treating them not as the adults they are.

This should say:
My girlfriend starts her teaching and lessons at the end and builds her plan BACKWARDS from there.

I love the idea of teaching as a cooking metaphor!
My girlfriend starts her teaching and lessons at the end and builds her plan from there. It helps me think about:
1. What do I want my students to know? What is the final knowledge outcome I desire?
2. What information (ingredients) do I need to provide to help them get there?
3. When that is done, How can I make that material interesting (100% pure vanilla rather than the cheap Kroger brand for instance? Maybe a hint of mint or unexpected rosemary?)
Teaching is indeed cooking. I think your idea of allowing 40% of the grade to be self-designed is awesome. in that way, you are still giving them the ingredients with which to work, but then they make the final product their own.