Ruth Larsen

Scholars such as Tony Harland argue that a university education can enable graduates to become ‘thoughtful participants in society’.¹ However, Hannah Forsyth and Jedidiah Evans note that ‘the way that history is written has been – and often still is – complicit in the perpetuation of empire, heteronormative sexualities, nationalism, patriarchy and forms of white supremacy’.² It is therefore important that history degrees have an inclusive curriculum that engages with critical issues. This can include modules that explore histories of gender and sexual identities, their diversities, and how they have been constructed by societies and changed over time. As gender history is also a route into cross-national histories, enabling students to examine how similar ideas were debated in different locations, it is possible to develop a student’s ability to become, in Harland’s phrase, a ‘critic and conscience of society’.³

Therefore, although there was resistance to the inclusion of the histories of gender and sexualities in higher education curricula in the early parts of the twentieth century, in recent decades there has been a growing recognition of the importance of these topics in developing a broader understanding the past.⁴ The histories of gender and sexuality are especially pertinent for scholars of the eighteenth century. As researchers such as Karen Harvey and Tim Hitchcock have shown, this was a period where there were new ways of discussing sex and sexualities, and gender identities were negotiated and reformed.⁵ More recently, there has been an acknowledgement that ‘the period’s crucial investments in and consolidations of gender and sexual normativity’ mean that eighteenth-century studies can be a fruitful arena for the study of queer and trans histories.⁶ There is also a diversity of scholarship that means that students have a significant set of historiographical debates that they can engage with and develop their critical understandings of how identities were formed and renegotiated in this period. To support this, there is a wide range of accessible primary sources for students of the eighteenth century, many of them digital such as those available through Eighteenth-Century Collections Online and the Wellcome Collections. This means that students can develop their own voices as historians and chart the development of (and resistance to) shifting social norms and forms of patriarchy.⁷

It is therefore important that we think about how students can be active participants in these modules. This chapter considers strategies that can be employed for encouraging student engagement, with a particular focus on the seminar. In particular, it focuses on an approach which I call, with a certain degree of knowingness, ‘BAD’ pedagogy. This model stresses the importance of thinking about what happens before and after each session as a way of encouraging student engagement during a seminar. I do not claim that this is a radical way of thinking; it draws on existing pedagogical literature on how to design individual sessions, modules and curricula. In particular, it builds on research that has highlighted the importance of student-centred learning and placing student outcomes, rather than the tutor’s desired outcomes, at the heart of teaching.⁸ This is the model described by John Biggs as ‘constructive alignment’, which is focused not on what the teacher does but on what the students do.⁹ What I hope this approach does, though, is bring this range of ideas into a simple single model that can be applied to a wide range of different modules in humanities degrees. By looking at case studies of how this approach has been applied to the teaching of the eighteenth-century histories of genders and sexualities to level 5 (second-year) students in a UK university, it highlights how a more holistic approach can help to encourage greater engagement within seminars and enable students to derive long-term benefits from their learning by supporting them to be articulate and critical thinkers.

The seminar is an important feature of many history degrees because of its focus on discussion, which is central to exploring the past within higher education settings. Therefore, much of the research on seminars has been focused on approaches that can encourage students to participate.¹⁰ However, the forms that this engagement takes can vary, depending on subjects, modules and individual students. We also need to ensure that we are thinking about the needs of a wide range of learners, as not all students are comfortable in being active learners. In their study of student experiences of classroom discussions, Do and Schallert note that unlike ‘the safe context of a lecture, in which a student could hide, to some students, particularly the nontalkers, the discussion was like a jungle with students needing to chart a path through unexpected thoughts, emotions, and actions’.¹¹ It is therefore important for the staff leading these sessions that they can provide a route map through the sometimes rocky terrain of a seminar.

However, this is not always easy. Many students feel uncomfortable talking, and it is important to remember that discussion-led learning is new to many higher education learners.¹² This discomfort can be exacerbated when a seminar topic is ‘difficult’, whether in terms of its complexity or due to ideas about social norms or etiquette. This sense of social awkwardness can impact a whole range of themes that historians consider; in discussions about race, religion and genocide, for example, students are often acutely aware of the need for sensitivity. This can mean that some prefer to remain silent, as this can be a way of either expressing tolerance of their fellow students’ views or avoiding an argument.¹³ Many students feel that it is not culturally acceptable to discuss some topics, such as sexuality, in open forums, and those students who have strong and/or divergent opinions about what is acceptable or unacceptable regarding sexualities may find it difficult to share these with fellow students.¹⁴ This tendency towards self-censorship has been noted by lecturers in a wide range of disciplines who teach gender and sexuality at university.

This has led to a growing focus on strategies for teaching these subjects. For example, in their edited collection Murphy and Ribarsky include models of best practice including debates, role play, source analysis exercises and assessment strategies.¹⁵ However, these learning and teaching texts have primarily focused on contemporaneous beliefs, experiences and representations of gender and sexuality rather than placing these into wider historical contexts. The challenge, and benefit, of teaching history can be the distance; it is easier for it to feel less personal, especially for periods before 1900. However, it is important to ensure that students do not fall into Whiggishness in their understanding of gender relations, and that they are guided in understanding the complexities of continuity and change. It can also be a challenge when using eighteenth-century sources that employ language and visual imagery that is not always in line with modern sensibilities. There can also be a strong tendency towards heteronormativity, both in terms of seminar contributions and in scholarly literature, and so it is often difficult to highlight that there were queer lives and queer experiences in the period.¹⁶ So how can a historian overcome these challenges? I would suggest that thinking about the student experience as a whole and not just on the individual module is crucially important.

Therefore, we need to start with the before. This should not just be the week before an individual session but can include thinking about what happens before they start the module, and even the programme, as a whole. This can help to set into place the relationships and expectations which mean that students are ready to have complex discussions and debates about challenging subjects, such as sexuality. Induction activities can really help students to understand what is expected of them at tertiary level. There can sometimes be an expectation that many learners, especially those who can be described as ‘traditional’ students, know what is required of them at university. However, as Grace Sykes has shown, the old model of ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ student is not helpful, and programmes and modules need to be designed to support a wide range of different learners.¹⁷ Research, such as that of Gibson et al., has stressed the importance of university-wide induction activities in helping a new starter to ‘become a student’, as it should not be presumed that they necessarily know what this means.¹⁸

This is also true of becoming ‘a historian’, and so ensuring that students are made aware of the expectations as early as possible is important. This can be delivered through activities based around research tasks, such as history-based treasure hunts or co-working with fellow students in undertaking a shared task, as well as the more traditional discussion of the expectations that staff have of students and, crucially, vice versa. The process of induction, whether it is at programme or module level, can also help in the formation of positive staff–student relations, which may be through activities such as study trips, informal gatherings such as coffee mornings or one-to-one tutorials early in a module. Inclusivity should be at the heart of these induction activities, in terms of reflecting both the diversity of the student cohort and the histories that they will cover. Providing a welcoming learning environment along with effective communication and a shared understanding of learning expectations can really help everyone to learn effectively, as well as supporting student retention by increasing students’ sense of ‘belongingness’.¹⁹

Another element which is important to consider when thinking about the before is the relationship of an individual module within a student’s programme of learning. This is because curriculum design can also help to make students more engaged. Effectively designed programmes can ensure that student learning is scaffolded in order to support students to become more engaged and effective independent learners throughout their degree, and to achieve the intended learning outcomes.²⁰ By moving away from a focus solely on individual modules and towards programme learning outcomes, staff can be aware of how each module fits within a wider programme of learning.²¹ This will usually include building student knowledge and skill-sets as they go through each level, through effective assessment and learning content design. In doing this, by taking a ‘Universal Design to Learning’ (UDL) approach, the diverse needs of students can be anticipated before they start a module, meaning that student support is built into the curriculum and module rather than being retrofitted.²² Ideally, all staff teaching on a programme will be engaged with this process of curriculum design. Therefore, all colleagues, including those on fixed-term contracts, should be made aware of how the modules they are teaching fit with the wider programme so they can design their sessions accordingly. For example, if you are aware that students have already studied modules where source analysis was central to their learning but have not had to present formally to their peers, you can shape the content of your early sessions to draw on existing strengths in order to build new ones.

Supporting students to be engaged learners can also be driven by what comes after. This too should shape curriculum design; it is important to think about graduate attributes and how these are scaffolded through the degree as a whole. In relationship to effective seminars, strong oral communication skills can really enhance a student’s employability, as well as giving them the confidence to explore key historical ideas and debates.²³ Providing opportunities for critical reading of primary and secondary materials, scholarly writing and effective reflection can also be an important element of developing skills that will support them through their degree and after graduation. These can therefore be incorporated into effective assessment design, and modules on the histories of gender and sexuality can be central in developing these skills.

There is increasing concern that students are ‘outcome driven’ in their learning, and this is often seen as problematic as it can reflect surface rather than deep learning.²⁴ However, understanding the strategic mindset and using it as motivation can have positive outcomes. Discussing with students why they are engaging in specific activities, and the benefits of doing so, can enable wider engagement. Part of this can be about long-term outcomes, such as enhancing their post-degree life opportunities; for example, an understanding of gender histories can be important in developing social awareness and interpersonal skills that are especially valued by many employers. This can help students realise that they are not just doing activities to pass modules but that the processes and skills they will develop in doing the work, as well as the knowledge they gain, could have lasting benefits. Therefore, encouraging students to be reflective learners can be important; encouraging students to think about their journey on the programme can help them to understand how they learn, what they have learned and how to continue to develop their own skills and knowledge.²⁵ This can be about not only what comes after the degree but also what comes next in the programme of learning (or in the immediate module). Helping students to understand how their engagement with an individual session can help them with future sessions and future modules, and encouraging students to reflect on this, can make learning more meaningful.

Thinking about the programme level before and after can help to shape the during. Below I set out how this ‘BAD’ pedagogy approach can be applied to teaching the histories of gender and sexualities. It draws on my experiences of teaching level 5 students in a UK university on a series of different modules that explored the interrelationships between men and women in the long eighteenth century. This academic material can be challenging, as it is very interdisciplinary in nature, and it often questions traditional ideas about gender norms by highlighting how they changed and were constructed over time. As with other modules on the degrees, these gender history modules were developed with the wider programme learning outcomes in mind, and the discipline-specific skills were mapped to levels and modules. Therefore, as a module leader, it was important for me to be aware of what students had studied before coming to these modules, and what the next steps were going to be. This meant that these gender history modules not only focused on delivering key content but also developed students’ skills in reading and critiquing primary sources, in addition to building their confidence in engaging with historiographical debates. They had been introduced to these ideas and approaches at level 4 (first year), but because these are key skills for history undergraduates, they needed to be reinforced at level 5 so that students were able to apply these effectively in their final-year extended projects or dissertations.

Over the ten years that I taught these modules, seminar-based learning was at the heart of the teaching strategy. Goodman et al. argue that the ‘discussion-based classroom serves to foreground the relationship between talk and the production of knowledge’.²⁶ This knowledge was focused not only on critical understandings of gender history but also on historical methodologies. However, for these seminars to be effective, it was important to ensure that the students were prepared for each session. Providing clear frameworks for expectations and empowering students to become knowledgeable enough about key ideas or debates can facilitate effective classroom discussions.²⁷ The responsibility for student preparedness should not just fall on the students; academic staff can play a crucial role in giving students guidance and support in being prepared. Within history, there is a long tradition of encouraging students to read before sessions, and most lecturers will know that if students have properly prepared for sessions, it can be hugely beneficial during discussions and debates. Preparing for a session does not have to be just reading; other activities such as watching a pre-recorded lecture, engaging with other audio-visual materials or undertaking a research task can all give students more confidence in advance of a taught session. This approach, when also supported with post-session activities, has often been described as an ‘inverted’ or ‘flipped’ classroom.²⁸ One of the key benefits of this can be that students have more control over when, how and what they learn, which in turn strengthens their conceptual understandings.²⁹ In terms of these modules specifically, it was again important for me to think about the before and the after when developing individual sessions. I used a virtual learning environment to give students access to electronic journals and digitised extracts from key books for their set preliminary reading, which helped students to build their knowledge and expertise of the current debates that shape this discipline area. These texts were selected while thinking about their journey through the module as a whole, not just a single session, and with an awareness of the wider programme that they were studying. This meant that the students were able to build up their knowledge and understanding through a scaffolded approach.

This focus on reading and discussion-based teaching shaped the assessment model used, thus connecting the before with the after and the during. In order to encourage students to engage on a module, it is important to not only prepare students for learning but also to consider why they are doing it: what are they preparing for? While being ready for an individual session is of course important, the longer-term impact of the preparation should also be considered, as well as what might be motivating the students, which is often completing an assessment. There has been considerable discussion about the importance of assessment strategies that help students to learn as well as enabling tutors to measure their knowledge and understanding.³⁰ This is embodied by the assessment for learning approach, which has, at its heart, the goal that all assessments should help students to learn.³¹ Ramsden argues that deep approaches to learning are encouraged by ‘teaching and assessment methods that foster active and long-term engagement with learning tasks’.³² For history students, engaging with research activities as part of their learning, which are then assessed, can also help them to develop their ability to engage with independent historical inquiry. This can be through an individual essay and/or through being assessed for their seminar participation, including leading a seminar as part of a group. This approach encourages a co-creation of knowledge, as they form communities of inquiry where they share research, ideas and debates, which in turn helps them to develop a depth of understanding for the topic and also enhances their transferable skills.³³

These modules assessed students through both the submission of an individual essay and through the assessment of a seminar presentation and ongoing participation in the sessions. In terms of the seminar presentation, students were put into groups and each group selected which of the weekly seminar topics they were going to lead. The sessions that they led were usually between 90 and 120 minutes long. As part of these seminars the students were expected to encourage discussions about key secondary literature, which I set as the module leader, as well as leading wider debates based on their own research. As all students were assessed not just on the seminar they led but also on their engagement in seminars across the module as a whole, the ‘presenters’ were encouraged to ensure that there was a high level of interactive and discursive learning opportunities for their fellow students. While I facilitated these sessions, making appropriate interventions and encouragements as necessary, they were primarily shaped and led by the students.

For some students this was a challenge; while they had some experience of leading seminars at level 4, they did find it difficult, especially when talking about some of the more complex and/or socially difficult topics. Therefore, to help students develop the skills to be proactive leaders of and participants in discussions, I led the first four seminars. In these I modelled good practice; I designed the sessions so that they were focused on debating and analysing primary and secondary source materials through active learning. This is what I wanted the student groups to do when they led their seminars, and so it was important for them to see it in practice. Writers such as Alan Booth and Geoff Timmins et al. have explored ways in which history can be taught through active learning, including the use of discussion groups, role play, structured debates and so on.³⁴ Active, or student-centred, learning can help students gain a greater depth of understanding and bring closer together academic research and the student experience.³⁵ This can then, in turn, encourage students to be more engaged with the process of learning about the past. Enabling students to select their own primary sources for discussion means that they can develop their own understandings of key ideas and topics.

As Elaine Carey found in her teaching in the University of Detroit Mercy, the process of students selecting, presenting and discussing their own primary sources means that they gain a more in-depth understanding of key theoretical and conceptual ideas as they have directly engaged with historical research that they have led.³⁶ I regularly saw this in the sessions my students designed. For example, one group, who led a seminar on gender and empire, brought to the seminar a wide range of primary sources connected to the ways in which gender was understood by the British in India during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This included both written and visual sources on the subject of sati (‘suttee’ or ‘widow burning’) that the students had been able to access through various digital databases. By bringing these materials together, the students leading the seminar were able to encourage the wider class to think about how ideas about race were shaping ideas about gender, and to discuss the similarities and differences between the constructions of ‘British’ and Hindu femininities. Many of the points raised by the students were sophisticated ideas, which built on both the set secondary reading and their own independent research about the histories of race. This shows how, through working collectively as a class, students were able to develop their own understandings and knowledge of the subject. This focus on students shaping their own learning means that they can become independent thinkers and so gain, in Kreber’s phrase, their own ‘authenticity’.³⁷ In order to gain these benefits, they needed to see it in practice, and that is what I was able to demonstrate in the first few weeks.

Another benefit of leading these first sessions was that it also enabled me to get a better understanding of how the students worked together. There was already a good working relationship in place; as there had been programme-level induction activities for these students at both levels 4 and 5, they had already got to know each other and me. However, these first few weeks meant that we could re-establish these connections within the context of the module. It is important that a good relationship between the tutor and the students is formed to enable high levels of engagement. As Hardman notes, ‘students’ attitude towards cooperative learning is highly dependent on how the tutor promotes and manages the dialogue and discussion arising from the student-to-student interactions’.³⁸ This meant that they were also able to form relationships with one another before they began to lead the sessions themselves. Do and Schallert note that the social culture of the seminar has a considerable impact on the feelings of the learners.³⁹ Therefore, if a relaxed learning environment can be developed, the degree of anxiety can be reduced, and the willingness to work with other students can increase. This is especially important when teaching the histories of gender and sexuality. Part of creating this positive social culture was developing a collective understanding of what made a good seminar. We discussed this openly, and in the weeks before the first student-led seminars we formed a ‘mock contract’ about what was required from the people leading the seminar, the tutor and the rest of the student group in order for a session to be a success. Collaborative learning can lead to a greater depth of understanding if staff and students engage with it fully and recognise that both groups need to play a role in creating a supportive and active learning environment.

Part of the shared agreement about what makes a successful seminar was for all parties to be prepared. This included doing the pre-session (the before) work. To support this, an element of the assessment was the completion of a seminar participation form. These forms, which also use the before, during and after approach, were first devised at the University of Derby by my colleague Professor Ian Whitehead and are used on a number of different modules throughout the history and English programmes. In the forms the student logs what they read in advance of the session, and their critical responses to the texts. This means that they can prepare some key notes and ideas about the materials, which can help some of the more nervous students to contribute more effectively, and to try and reduce the degree of anxiety that some students feel when making a point.⁴⁰ They also formally note what contributions they make during sessions, and how they are connected to their wider research. This means that, when grading student participation, it is possible to move away from quantity to quality, as some of the most engaged students may make relatively few contributions to in-class discussions. Research has suggested that the number of utterances made by an individual student does not necessarily reflect the quality of their critical understanding.⁴¹ Participation forms can therefore allow the quieter but more critically engaged student to shine, and can be especially supportive to students who have different learning styles. This is especially important in modules where there are some topics under discussion where some students may self-censor. Finally, students reflect on their engagement after each session on the participation form, as well as completing a longer reflective piece about their engagement on the module as a whole. This encourages them to take ownership of their own learning and to develop strategies for future sessions and modules. This means that students identify that they are on a journey through the programme, and how the before, after and during all interconnect.

These seminar participation forms therefore not only formally capture students’ preparation and participation but also encourage them to become active and engaged learners. Gehring and Nicholson have found that students welcome the use of participation forms. While, at first, they can find them time-consuming to complete, they commented that this form of assessment means that more students engage within discussion and debates and that they are more likely to prepare for the sessions.⁴² I have found this to be the case for these modules. Since adopting these forms, it is clear how much more engaged students have become, and it encourages them to be more engaged learners. It also enhances the quality of the student-led seminars. Because they are doing the weekly reading, and writing about it, they are more able to make interconnections between different critical ideas. It also encourages them to move away from some of the ‘lazy’ assumptions about gender and sexuality, and so can prevent ill-informed presumptions about past experiences and discourage heteronormative approaches. Students are also very aware that while they only lead one seminar, they are being assessed throughout the semester. This helps them to recognise that they have a crucial role in making seminars work every week. While researchers have found that some students can see student-led sessions as problematic, as they prefer to be taught by the tutor rather than hear the possible misunderstandings of their fellow learners, it is important that we confront the idea that university learning is a passive experience.⁴³ This ongoing assessment encourages this more active learning approach, and can mean that students have the confidence to talk about complex topics which may need a degree of sensitivity to discuss effectively. The fact that, during my ten years of teaching these modules, most students fully engaged reflects the real benefit of effective module design, delivery and the integration of assessment for learning into the teaching, using the notion of constructive alignment.⁴⁴

The ‘BAD’ pedagogy approach can have a positive impact on the way in which students engage with their learning throughout a history degree. Creating, at both module and at programme level, a student-centred curriculum that considers where students are starting from and where they are going can impact on both their studies and their long-term opportunities. Pedagogic research suggests that students are more likely to engage with ‘deep’ learning when studying a topic that is of particular relevance to them, which can then have a direct impact on their attainment; gender history can be one of those ‘relevant’ topics.⁴⁵ A student-centred approach also encourages students to be researchers and co-producers, and the depth of sources and materials on the histories of sexuality in the eighteenth century allows students to develop their own voice as historians. It is not just about the past; it can also help the students’ future too, as well as enabling life-long learning.⁴⁶ Student-led seminars are one way to do just this as they encourage a co-creation of knowledge which is supported by the depth of learning facilitated by the seminar participation forms.⁴⁷ However, as Hardman argues, it is important that we do not solely place the responsibility for learning and engaging with the students: the tutor also plays a crucial role by ensuring that the seminars are dialogical, thus encouraging engagement.⁴⁸ It is also important not just to focus on an individual seminar; lecturers need to consider how single sessions fit within the module and the programme as a whole. This can help tutors to employ strategies to engage students by showing them how they are on a wider programme of learning. I would also argue that the way the seminars are set up, using the ‘BAD’ pedagogy model can also help to produce a strong tutor–students relationship that can enable them to engage fully in the sessions. This can mean that students feel more capable of discussing the complex, and sometimes socially difficult, subjects that they will encounter on a history programme and develop their own confidence to discuss a wide range of topics, including talking about sex.