“Just Don't Get Too Personal”

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors explore Millennial students' perceptions of contemporary transformative teaching pedagogy. Following a review of the literature on popular transformative teaching practices, the authors share their findings from a survey of 400 students from two different colleges regarding teaching methods that students perceive distracts them from learning. The authors argue that while students appreciate many feminist teaching goals, they are distracted by some of the strategies that professors often use to accomplish these goals. More specifically, while students wish to be respected as valuable co-producers of knowledge in the classroom, a number of them claim to be distracted by the use of self-disclosure and physical movement. The authors suggest that professors may wish to revisit their strategies with the understanding that our current students' experiences with technology and family alter their expectations of faculty behavior.