- Social Movements: Fall 2006
- Social Inequalities: Fall 2007, Fall 2008
- Social Problems: Summer 2007
- Introduction to Sociology: Fall 2005, Spring 2005*, Summer 2007, Fall 2007, Spring 2008§, Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2009
§ learning community
teaching interests
Social movements, social inequalities (class, gender, race), social problems, political sociology, complex organizations, research methods
student evaluation summary
philosophy
<objectives
My pedagogical approach to teaching strongly values (1) real-world application, (2) critical thinking, and (3) active student participation in the learning process. First, I embrace the values and strategies underling public sociology. I believe sociology should speak to and participate outside of the academy. Every person contributes somehow to the society they are a part of, but often without noticing or acknowledging how they affect it. I encourage students to take an active role in their own communities and spatial locations, and hopefully to apply sociological insights there. Students learn to locate themselves within broader society, whether it is in their neighborhood, family, workplace, or a social movement. This helps students to develop their “sociological imaginations”. Second, critical thinking is learning processes that help judge the difference between “common sense” and scientific evidence. Thus, critical thinking is oriented towards an accurate interpretation of the surrounding world and is absolutely necessary for everyone in today’s society, regardless of whether one is a sociology major, college student, or just a human being. Many forces in society actively attempt to obscure, mislead, or omit important facts and interpretations that could help people make more sense of the world and their place in it. As such, I foster intellectual self-defense in my classes. Students gain the tools—and have numerous opportunities to practice with those tools—to analyze their lives and their communities. Third, students must actively participate in their own learning processes in order for “education” to be successful. Moreover, it is important that students have a say in the direction of a course, particularly upper-division, substantive classes. Therefore, I structure my teaching to be open to class-wide discussions and student interests.
<methods to achieve objectives
Students find real-world application to sociological ideas in two primary ways. First, students can complete extra-credit assignments every week in my introductory courses that requires students to apply sociological ideas to current events. Depending on the subject in a given week, students can find a newspaper article that attempts to use a concept we are discussing in class. Students must critique the article’s usage of the concept and create sociological depth to the current event being written about. Second, students write a “letter to an editor”. In this assignment, students must present a sociological problem, research interpreting the problem, and recommend an applied way of solving the problem. Since the assignment is targeted at a newspaper audience, the writing must be simple, succinct, but compellingly written. Students who actually submit the letter to be published in a newspaper earn extra credit.
Students build their critical thinking skills in a number of ways. First, students write reaction papers, especially in upper-division courses, that force them to react and critique required readings. Students read these papers to the whole class, while we sit in a circle. The class builds a discussion based on these reaction papers. Second, students watch films in class which provides fodder for discussion, to practice application of ideas, and to provoke challenge to traditional ideas.
Students take an active role in their
learning by allowing
them to direct the conversation, especially in upper-division classes.
As
facilitator, I am able to act as a catalyst for the exchange and
processing of
ideas, knowledge, and critical thinking. Facilitators keep a class
on-track and
on-subject, allow for full-participation by all, and generally let
those in
attendance arrive at the points through their own mental processes. It
is my
job to help structure classroom discussion in a way that encourages
such an
environment; as such, I position the classroom chairs in a circle that
removes
the typical hierarchical nature of a classroom oriented toward the
front of the
room and the one expert. For introductory courses, students do group
work. In
groups, students brainstorm together as well as complete quizzes
together. By
doing quizzes and other assignments together, students create not only
collective learning situations and bonds of higher expectation, but
some
students also take the role of “teacher” towards their
fellow group members,
thus reinforcing their knowledge on an even greater level.
Students complete mid-term evaluations, where they anonymously answer two questions: “What has been best aiding in your learning?” and “What could be done to better aid in your learning?” By asking questions in this way, students pro-actively reflect on specific aspects of the class that do or could directly impact their class performance. Introductory students regularly comment that group quizzes encourage them to prepare for class, while upper-division students appreciate how their discussion becomes the center-point of the class (and sitting in a circle, in particular).
I thoroughly enjoy my role as a teacher, especially when a class opens a student upto a brand new way of looking at the world. I believe that if people are given the tools to analyze their world and shown positive examples of ways of interacting with elements of that world, that they will do so. Thus, I do not consider sociology to be a mere social science that attempts to interpret society, but one that provides a guide for how to remake that society and how to overcome a variety of inequalities that besiege society. I agree with Michael Burawoy's statement that students are a sociologist's “first public” audience. As such, I believe that any course in sociology must attempt to provide students with the tools to critical analyze their worlds and to defend themselves against regressive, anti-human ideology and practice (as Pierre Bourdieu says: “sociology is a martial art”). Teaching is a small way of helping people to prepare themselves for this.