Making It Count: Using Real-World Projects for Course Assignments

Abstract

Previous scholarship has demonstrated the value of high-impact practices of community engagement, inquiry-based pedagogy, and collaborative learning for engagement and learning in sociology courses, especially undergraduate research methods and statistics. This article explores the changes made to an upper-division undergraduate course focused on applied research practices and community-level interventions. After teaching the course once as a lecture-based course with assignments that simulated real projects and receiving poor student evaluation scores, I revised the course by partnering with local nonprofit organizations that were in need of research assistance. I turned the major graded assignments into real-world research projects that would ultimately be presented to the local organization, thus making everything actually count—in the real world. The findings from surveys of students, course evaluations, and assessment of group projects suggest that students found this to improve their experience of the course and to increase their learning and engagement of the material and confidence in their ability to conduct applied research on their own.

Counting Tents: Pedagogical Reflections on Faculty–Student Collaboration in a Real-World Project on Homelessness

“…While these goals were central to our research project, the community element was underdeveloped as we did not work directly with a community partner. Even so, we do report similar findings as community-based researchers, such as skill development, teamwork and communication, and greater confidence and proficiency in the research process (Bach and Weinzimmer 2011;Shostak et al 2019;Wollschleger 2019). Pestello and colleagues (1996) argue for community-based models based on the idea of the "citizen-scholar," which, in practice, holistically integrate teaching, research, and service.…”

“…Working in teams also enhanced student commitment. As suggested by Wollschleger (2019), repeated interactions from working in teams might bring forth emotional energy through joint purpose and enhance student confidence and engagement. This project was fundamentally a team effort.…”

“…Even though most of the student researchers were involved for only a portion of the project, it was still influential for all students. Research shows that students benefit from even partial participation in real-world research projects (Wollschleger 2019). In addition, the amount of faculty time and effort that this type of active learning research project requires makes it difficult to implement widely.…”

“…Prior studies also show that students benefit specifically from hands-on experience to critically examine social issues and real-world problems (Mobley 2007). Recent work also highlights the importance of research as a part of sociology curriculum (Peyrefitte and Lazar 2018; Wollschleger 2019). Our study emphasizes the role of students as producers of knowledge in line with other published work (Greenberg, London, and McKay 2020).…”

Effectively Engaging First-Generation Rural Students in Higher Education: New Opportunities for Sociology

“…For example, written and podcast assignments can ask students to connect course content with their hometowns and analyze issues in their communities. Such activities can help students reflect critically on their communities, develop communication and other skills, and identify solutions to social problems (Greenberg, London, and McKay 2020; Hall and Jones 2021; Wollschleger 2019). This approach of connecting content to students’ communities also allows rural students to capitalize on strengths, such as existing connections to place and family support, while also highlighting the diversity of rural communities (Ardoin 2017; Whiteside 2021).…”