Active and Collaborative Learning in an Undergraduate Sociological Theory Course

Pedersen, Daphne E.

doi:10.1177/0092055x10370119

Cited by 42 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Using these multiple methods of evaluation was useful, particularly for maximizing fairness and avoiding the difficulty of assessing the quality and quantity of individual students in a collaborative project. Furthermore, relying more heavily on individual work helps to minimize certain dangers of group work, such as social loafing and the diffusion of responsibility (Pedersen 2010).…”

Section: Pedagogical Advantagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Focus Group Interviewing

George

2012

Teach Sociol

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Focus group interviewing is widely used by academic and applied researchers. Given the popularity and strengths of this method, it is surprising how rarely focus group interviewing is taught in the undergraduate classroom and how few resources exist to support instructors who wish to train students to use this technique. This article fills the gap in the teaching and learning literature in sociology by addressing focus group research. I describe how to integrate a complete research project with student-led focus groups into a single semester course. I outline the various stages involved in the research process and then consider how this approach enhances three specific areas: learning, teaching, and scholarship. The effectiveness of the focus group project was assessed through a one-group pretest-posttest survey of the student-researchers’ experiences. I conclude with a reflection on the practical limitations as well as the considerable advantages of training students to conduct focus group research.

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Section: Pedagogical Advantagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Focus Group Interviewing

George

2012

Teach Sociol

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“…A basic principle of successful teaching in Sociology is the mobilisation of the student's experience and knowledge [26,42,43]. According to Egreja [39], teachers state that the difficulties that usually arise in the teaching of the discipline are the lack of writing and reading habits on the part of students, their low level of general culture, and immaturity, which has been increasing from year to year.…”

Section: Guidelines On How To Teachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Likewise, the receptivity of the teacher to the possibility of change is very important [42,52], fighting excessive isolation that can be harmful to the quality of teaching [36]. Indeed, it is critical that the teacher has a self-reflexive and self-assessing capacity, both during class and in the longer term, in seeking to foster an improvement of his/her teaching processes: "It is crucial for teachers to question regularly, reflect upon, and improve their teaching practices" [54] (p. 15).…”

Section: Guidelines On How To Teachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges in the Teaching of Sociology in Higher Education. Contributions to a Discussion

Ferreira

Serpa

2017

Societies

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Abstract:At a time when Sociology (either in its introductory or general dimension or in the form of specialised Sociologies) is acknowledged as a scientific discipline with important contributions in training at the higher education level, and not only for the future sociologist, there is a need to (re)think the problem of teaching Sociology in this context. This article seeks to contribute to this discussion on the teaching of Sociology in higher education, being a grounded reflection that is based on the authors' teaching experience in the Portuguese context. Sociology has specificities, which we put forward through four framing principles, namely the need to permanently mobilise sociological imagination, be multi-paradigmatic, the need to be receptive to a heuristic interdisciplinarity, and, finally, foster reflexivity at several levels. These principles should, from our standpoint, shape the teaching of Sociology, both delimiting what should be taught and fostering the way to teach while abiding by these principles. As a conclusion, this problem of teaching Sociology needs an in-depth investigation, in the search for a growing pedagogical quality in a context of increasing opportunities to reform the type of teaching provided in higher education, which is a permanent challenge.

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“…Faculty and administrators increasingly promote active learning in which students learn by doing something (e.g., Christiansen & Fischer, 2010;Godfrey, 2015;Obach, 2009;Pedersen, 2010;Persell, 2004), while the best practices of online learning in social science urge instructors to "increase motivation and engagement" among learners (McKinney, 2010, p. 1). In addition to fostering active rather than passive students, engaged learning may facilitate the development of analytical skills for higher-order learning.…”

Section: Engaging With Our Learnersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change and Society: Toward Online Pedagogy

Kelly

McCright

Dietz³

2015

HER

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Climate change, one of the most important social problems of the twenty-first century, challenges pedagogy to incorporate complex themes from social and biophysical sciences. We propose an approach to a course on "Climate Change and Society" grounded in pedagogical research. Integrating the development of higher-level learning skills into course learning objectives, we suggest such a course be implemented online to take advantage of the virtual teaching and learning tools available to educators of climate change and as a way to actively engage the learner, thus using online pedagogy as a key element in learning that spans social and biophysical sciences.

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Active and Collaborative Learning in an Undergraduate Sociological Theory Course

Cited by 42 publications

References 8 publications

Teaching Focus Group Interviewing

Teaching Focus Group Interviewing

Challenges in the Teaching of Sociology in Higher Education. Contributions to a Discussion

Climate Change and Society: Toward Online Pedagogy

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