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A Quarterly Publication of
The American Sociological Association
ABSTRACTS--Volume 26, Number 3, July 1998
ARTICLES
- Pitching the Profession: Faculty Guest Speakers in the Classroom .....Linda A Mooney
- Profits and Pitfalls: Thoughts on Using a Laptop Computer and Presentation Software to Teach Introductory Social Statistics .....Janet Wilmoth and John Wybraniec
NOTES
- Random Acts of Kindess: A Teaching Tool for Positive Deviance .....Angela Lewellyn Jones
- Walking the Walk: Socializing Students to Social Activism .....Debra Cornelius
- Using Critical Autobiography to Teach the Sociology of Education .....Rosemary F. Powers
- Race and Popular Culture: Teaching AFrican American Leadership Styles through Popular Music .....Theresa A. Martinez
- Using Computer Assignments to Promote Active Learning in the Undergraduate Social Problems Course .....Theodore D. Fuller
- The Teacher as Text: Using Personal Experience to Stimulate the Sociological Imagination .....Walter R. Jacobs
Pitching the Profession: Faculty Guest Speakers in the Classroom Using an experimental design, the present study examines the impact of faculty guest speakers on introductory sociology students’: (1) certainty of registering for another sociology course, majoring in sociology, or minoring in sociology, (2) interest in taking another sociology class, and (3) perception of sociology as applicable to their lives, to their careers, and as a valued course of study. The results indicate that the experimental manipulation had very little impact on the seven dependent variables, leading to a discussion of the role and content of the introductory course and some suggestions for enhancing student recruitment efforts.
(Linda A Mooney)
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Profits and Pitfalls: Thoughts on Using a Laptop Computer and Presentation Software to Teach Introductory Social Statistics The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the issues associated with using a laptop computer and presentation software during lectures. This discussion is informed by our own experience as well as end of the semester grades and student course evaluations from six sections of introductory social statistics that were taught between the fall of 1995 and the spring of 1997. Direct student quotes are used throughout the paper to emphasize particular points and to provide insight into students’ perspectives on the computer presentations. Based on this objective and subjective evidence, we conclude that computer presentations can act as useful tool in courses like social statistics and methods. These presentations encourage classroom interaction, heighten interest, and provide a structure to lectures that can facilitate student comprehension and performance. This article also discusses potential problems that arise when using this technology.
(Janet Wilmoth and John Wybraniec)
Random Acts of Kindness: A Teaching Tool for Positive Deviance Students are often fascinated by the unusual nature of deviant behavior, yet they fail to see the significance of examining such behavior from a sociological point of view. My "Random Acts of Kindness" journal assignment is a useful means to keep the students focused on the sociology of deviant behavior rather than deviance itself, as well as providing them with an opportunity to conduct some sociological research of their own. The assignment also lessens some of the students' ethnocentric points of view regarding deviant categories of individuals and groups through the development of a much clearer understanding of how deviance is created. Excerpts from student journals illustrate how this assignment helps to expand students' sociological awareness of both negative and positive deviance in our social world. The assignment also proves to be an effective teaching tool for illuminating various other sociological concepts, such as the differential distribution of power as well as gender and race inequality.
(Angela Lewellyn Jones)
Walking the Walk: Socializing Students to Social Activism This note describes an assignment for a variety of sociology courses to socialize students to activism. In a survey of my students, I found almost no prior participation in political collective action and discovered that students had few personal role models from which to learn the benefits of social movement activity. I have had great success with an assignment requiring students to join a social movement organization and analyze its effectiveness. This note details the assignment and includes evaluations from past participants. Results indicate that students can become more empowered citizens in a democratic society through socialization to activism.
(Debra Cornelius)
Using Critical Autobiography to Teach the Sociology of Education This paper offers a specific approach that strengthens students' engagement with the theoretical questions of the sociology of education. This paper describes assignments that use published autobiographies and students' memories of their own schooling. It also provides examples of student writing and addresses limitations an potential uses of the approach for other courses.
(Rosemary F. Powers)
Race and Popular Culture: Teaching African American Leadership Styles through Popular Music Sociologists are finding that popular culture can act as an effective teaching tool in a variety of sociology courses. This article focuses on music as a teaching tool in a racial and ethnic relations course. Specifically, the article describes the use of music to highlight different leadership styles in the African American community. It also shares the positive effects this teaching tool has on student response and discussion.
(Theresa A. Martinez)
Using Computer Assignments to Promote Active Learning in the Undergraduate Social Problems Course The pedagogical literature indicates that active learning is typically more effective than passive learning. One way to promote active learning in sociology classes is to engage students in the process of sociological inquiry. This paper discusses a pedagogical technique that accomplishes this goal by incorporating data analysis and interpretation into an undergraduate class. The software used is relatively easy to learn, allowing typical undrgraduates to become active participants in sociological analysis quickly. By luring students into the role of researcher, they are able to experience the dynamic process of discovery that is an integral part of sociological investigations. According to contemporary educational research, this approach, in comparison to more traditional teaching techniques, should promote a deeper level of understanding. While this paper is based on my experience with a sophomore-level social problems course, students in many other empirically oriented sociology courses could easily perform similar analyses.
(Theodore D. Fuller)
The Teacher as Text: Using Personal Experience to Stimulate the Sociological Imagination The concept of "articulation" instructs us that (1) specific connections of societal issues and personal troubles serve particular interests and powers, and (2) these connections are not "natural"--they are created through discourse, can be broken through discourse, and replaced with different understandings. The "teacher as text" is a technique where instructors use their own articulations to help students strengthen their sociological imaginations. Teachers as text expose students to alternative narratives based on their own lived expereinces, explode those narratives into their constitutive parts, and explicate new narratives that help teacher and student create more empowered and democratic subjectivities. I explore a postmodernist cultural studies theoretical framework for this critical pedagogical project.
(Walter R. Jacobs)
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