STATEMENT ON TEACHING

My commitment at Northern State University (NSU) is to provide a quality learning experience for my students which provides ample preparation for future careers in fields related to Sociology. My broad teaching philosophy includes three main pillars that underpin everything I do in the classroom: (a) building student power and autonomy, (b) creating an environment of academic rigor, and (c) producing a climate of diversity and inclusion. I am committed to these pillars both because they create an environment of high-impact learning for our students but also because they align with my disciplinary perspective and practice. Sociology, as a discipline, studies human societies, structures, and human interaction. Within those structures, a large portion of sociology has been exploring the forgotten or hidden and exposing the structures that harm. We are a discipline that seeks to translate social structures into practical use, help the public understand the significance of social structures and forces, and provide contexts for social behaviors, social conditions, and social problems. This makes sociology a valuable discipline for students to be exposed to throughout their time in college as it prepares them to analyze and problem solve the world around them in structural ways. To that end, I have designed my courses to not only provide content knowledge but also teach the analytical skills that will assist students regardless of the careers they choose. In my statement, I will first explore how I have accomplished my three pedagogical pillars in the classroom and then discuss some of the ways I have worked to develop myself as a better teaching during my time at NSU.

Building Student Power and Autonomy:

Sociologist Max Weber (2015), when looking at power and authority, defined the concept of “power” as the ability to make others do what you want them to do regardless of resistance. “Authority,” consequently, is the legitimate use of power to which subordinates agree and consent. Educators, in the perspective of students, have a position of supreme power; we write the syllabus that controls what materials students learn, we create the assignments that control how students learn the materials students learn, and we have the power to create the norms and standards both for grading and general behaviors (e.g., late work, attendance, etc.). This practice of teacher-centric classrooms and power often directly contradicts what pedagogical research shows are best practices for student learning (e.g., Bowman and Culver 2018, McKeachie and Svinicki 2006, Pang 2010). Good teaching is student-centered and promotes student agency. This is especially important as Alinsky notes, “[i]f people don’t think they have the power to solve their problems, they won’t even think about how to solve them” (1946:4). I design my classes to help students critically think about the problems in the world around them and recognize that they do have the power to address and solve those problems. To embed student agency and autonomy in my classes, I have tried different designs in all levels of classes.

Since 2016, I have been experimenting with the high-impact practice of a “flipped classroom” design in my face-to-face Introduction to Sociology (SOC 100) classes. I created short videos for each week, ten to fifteen minutes long with a maximum of three videos per week, that: (a) covered the concepts that were most important from that week’s material and (b) briefly gave an example that illustrates the concept. Those videos, along with course PowerPoints, and the reading assignments became the core of the out-of-classroom work for students. Inside the classroom, I worked specifically to come up with activities that asked students to apply the concepts in different ways. In-class activities are designed to do at least one of three things: (a) get students to practice the scientific method and social science research skills (e.g., observation, interviews, etc.), (b) to sharpen their skills of analysis and critical thinking (e.g., building an argument, conceptual explanations tailored for different groups, etc.), and (c) get students to see and understand the circumstances of people that do not come from their kind of backgrounds and experiences, particularly in terms of race/class/gender/ability/sexuality (e.g., understanding social stratification). While I am predominantly seeking to reach the “apply” level of Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy, many of the assignments also reach toward higher thinking skills, particularly in terms of evaluation and creation. For example, when discussing cultural norms, I have students pair up and spend twenty minutes of class time observing people both following and breaking norms. This activity is, on the surface, easy. However, it teaches students to hone their observation skills for behavior, how to write extensive and descriptive field notes, and in the best cases with diverse populations to observe, how to recognize differing cultural norms. In addition to achieving “applying” on Bloom’s (1956) hierarchy, this assignment requires that students understand and use three key linked sociological concepts: norms, conformity, and deviance. In a twenty-minute activity, the students have furthered their understanding of social life around them. This is reinforced by the follow-up discussion and activities that follow it as well as the summative assessments (i.e., written/essay exams and papers) within the course. A flipped classroom is considered both high-impact and a good way to build student autonomy because it encourages learners to be proactive and reflective to meet the learning goals of the activity. Further, it has students actively doing rather than being passive in the classroom. Student response, as measured through Student Opinion of Instruction (SOI) surveys, was mixed early on but gradually improved overall as I perfected the formula; by Spring 2020, I was providing very basic course content lectures one day a week in class and the other two days were used for activities.

In my Spring 2019, Popular Culture and Society (SOC 260) course, I decided to try another way to give students power within the classroom: I gave them partial control over the assignments in the course. The course has total possible points of five hundred; I created assignments that accounted for three hundred of those points. During the first class in January, I took forty-five minutes to allow students to set the assignments to which they wanted the other two hundred points to apply. They choose to incorporate weekly reading responses, substantive class participation and attendance, and mandatory faculty meetings as their assignments. As students had control over what assignments they had to complete, they were more invested in that completion. On my Student Opinion of Instruction (SOI) surveys from that class, students even commented specifically on those assignments; one student noting “I liked how we didn’t have tests and how we had discussion posts every week to do. I liked how we were able to put out our thoughts and ideas for others to see.” Another student, when asked “What did you appreciate most about this class and why?” on the SOI, responded “I enjoyed the most that we got to decide how we wanted our syllabus and grading to go. I’ve never had a teacher do that and I really appreciated it.”

In Spring 2020, when NSU was forced to go online in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I let the students in my face-to-face classes decide how we would proceed. Students in all three face-to-face classes overwhelming voted to continue asynchronously so I worked to rearrange the assignments, content, and schedule to reflect both the loss of a week due to the extended spring break and their desire not to meet synchronously during the second half of the semester. With my SOC 100 course, this “redesign” was easy as the class was flipped and was ready to be converted. The only changes I needed to make were dealing with the in-class activities. In my two upper division classes, students had assignments where they “taught” the class and those had to be dramatically reworked for a purely online environment.

Finally, my last experiment with course design for student autonomy is in my Fall 2020 Technology and Society (IDL 190) course. In this course, I decided to try out the pedagogical technique of “ungrading.” As I explain in the course syllabus, “How exactly does ungrading work then? It’s simple: students do the grading while I get to focus on feedback to help and coach you toward improvement. You will never see a letter grade or point assessment from me on any assignment in this class. Instead, students will be asked to assign themselves the grade they think they deserve for each assignment and will be asked to write a reflexive essay at the end of the semester the explores what letter grade they believe they have earned for the semester. Ungrading is a pedagogical/teaching technique where the emphasis is on instructor feedback and qualitative assessment and not on instructor grading.” Ungrading builds both autonomy and student metacognition – a key component of rigor – by asking the student to reflect on their own work and how well they have met the assignment’s goals.

Creating an Environment of Academic Rigor:

When developing and maintaining rigor in the classroom, I have decided to conceptualize rigor as a process of inquiry- and equity-based learning and interactions between students and students and faculty that which that encourages students to achieve their full potential in both academic and broader development. Research shows that students and faculty have widely divergent views of what “rigor” is and means. Faculty tend to be more mastery-focused (e.g., analyzing concepts and applying skills in practical ways to the world around them) while students see “rigor” as workload, effort, and grades (Draeger, del Prado Hill and Mahler 2015). The conceptualization of rigor I use when developing syllabi and assignments leans heavily toward the “mastery” conceptualization but also – in its emphasis on interactions and achievement – allows room for students’ understandings of the term as well.

In my SOC 100 classes, rigor is embedded in the assignments in several ways. I try and keep my teaching style toward the conversational. Some students will respond to lectures, some respond to discussion, others to activities. I incorporate all three types of teaching into my face-to-face classrooms but all of them are underpinned by the idea of a conversation. I believe that a vital part of a good learning environment is the inclusion of multiple voices. Letting students talk, encouraging them to analyze, critique, and explore in the classroom, gives me insights into their comprehension of the material, a better understanding of the students themselves, and even can surprise me as a teacher with new ideas or ways of looking at things than I had considered before. In my online classes, student-to-student interaction is harder to encourage but I have done that through the inclusion of discussion boards and group projects. Instead, the emphasis is more on autonomous learning and student-to-teacher interaction. I make use of frequent opportunities to provide feedback for improvement and discuss with students how that feedback could be used in the future (Bowman and Culver 2018).

With my upper division electives within the major, I endeavor to avoid lecture as the sole or primary mode of instruction and instead allow the students to work together through activities, projects, research, debates, or discussion to come to conclusions about the material presented. This requires a large commitment from the students to come prepared each day to class familiar with the readings assigned and, for the most part, students deliver on that expectation when made clear to them at the beginning of the semester. These discussions are supplemented by numerous writing assignments including: (a) weekly reading responses of 200 words minimum asking the students to engage with the material from the week and engage in metacognition (Pang 2010, Pang and Ross 2010), (b) short papers of a minimum of 500 words each which require students to apply and evaluate concepts in real world contexts, and (c) term papers the require students to produce original research or policy evaluations to provide project-based and inquiry-based learning that encourages students to investigate the content (and world) through standard disciplinary practices (Bowman and Culver 2018, Mark and Angela Calabrese 2016). This emphasis on writing and discussion in both “low stakes” and “high stakes” assessments ties directly to my personal and our programmatic goals of advancing our students’ writing and verbal communications skills. The one exception to this is Socio-Cultural Theory (SOC 281), a writing-intensive course that often requires extensive lecture to help the students understand the material. Even in this class I organized “Application Fridays” which ask the students to present quick 30-60 second examples of how the theories discussed that week might be present today or examples of why theories are not applicable. I have also used group projects that ask students to visualize theory in a way that the public would understand (e.g., infographics, posters, memes, etc.). Further, they have a semester long project that asks them to present theories that would be relevant to research the student would like to pursue and explain how the theories are connected in 5-7-minute presentations during the final exam period for the course.

Producing a Climate of Diversity and Inclusion:

As I noted earlier, Sociology is a discipline that is – in its essence – about people. Due to that focus, assisting the students in exploring the world around them and the wide variety of people within in it, is a key element of our discipline. My approach to creating a climate of diversity and inclusion is through stories and storytelling. There is a long history of storytelling in human society; hundreds of caves around the world are home to paintings that tell stories about the cultures and people who created them thousands of years ago. The oldest known written story is the Epic of Gilgamesh and tells the story of two people literally becoming human together. The oral history of indigenous aboriginal Australians has passed memories of life over time. Some tribes can still point to islands that have only existed underwater for 10,000 years – and give the original names of those islands as well. Dan P. McAdams, a psychologist who studies how we understand stories in our own lives, argues that “storytelling may be the way through which human beings make sense of their own lives and the lives of others” (1996:207, emphasis in original).

Due to the power of stories to connect and explain, they make a perfect pedagogical vehicle for helping the students see and empathize with the experiences of people around them. This type of work in the classroom also corresponds with my research interests, as I explore in my research statement. I primarily use stories in three forms: (a) the media, (b) student personal narratives, (c) outside narratives. The use of fiction and news media are embedded in every course that I teach. For example, in my SOC 100 courses, the first paper always asks students to apply the concepts of socialization, culture, norms, and values – which are introduced within the first three weeks of class – to a different novel each semester. The novels are selected and centered on characters from different cultures (e.g., She Plays with the Darkness, Internment, etc.) or are set in situations or contexts that are deliberately outside of the scope of current experiences (e.g., Trail of Lightning, Unkindness of Ghosts, etc.), or a combination of the two. This assignment requires students to step outside of their own ethnocentric perspectives and begin to think and see other ideologies and paradigms. Being able to contextualize their experiences in society allows them to gain cultural tools (Swidler 1986) to gain power for themselves. The use of news media and reports – from local, national, and international sources — allows students to see sociological concepts in action in the world around them. Through the weekly reading responses in all levels of courses, I ask students to react to concepts and reflect on their own stories and place within the world. Finally, the use of outside voices through TedTalks, spoken word poetry, documentaries, and outside speakers allows for students to be exposed to diverse ideas and experiences from voices other than my own.

Developing as a Teacher:

During my time in rank at NSU, I have used my SOI surveys results to make substantive changes in many classes, attempted to increase the rigor of the material presented and assignments given at all instructional levels, provide opportunities for interdisciplinary and active learning to increase not only sociological content knowledge but also “soft” skills such as analytical, communication, and critical thinking skills. The following graph demonstrates my raw scores for my SOC 100 online sections on the SOI questions regarding “excellent teacher” and “excellent course:”

 

As the line graph shows, my scores have been mostly stable, with some variations between sections (i.e., spring 2020). The response rates for online sections tend to be lower than my face-to-face sections so I tend to rely more on the qualitative questions I ask on every SOI beginning in Spring 2017:

1. What forms of learning materials did you primarily use when learning online (e.g., videos, textbook, online PowerPoint, etc.)? Why did you prefer that material?
2. Learning online is primarily a solitary activity. As an online learner, did you enjoy the solitary nature of this course or did you find yourself wanting more interaction with other students? If you wanted more interaction, do you have suggestions for ways that might work for you?
3. What assignments throughout the course did you find yourself enjoying? What about those assignments did you like? Which ones did find yourself not enjoying? What about those assignments did you dislike?

Students tended to respond favorably to the discussion boards across all sections and joy the chance to engage with and apply the material. The three short (500 word minimum) papers I assign often received mixed feedback. While some students enjoyed the assignments, some felt they needed more direction. In response to these comments, I redesigned my paper rubric to provide the students with more comprehensive direction and feedback. The assignments the are consistently is remarked on as “disliked” are the group projects which I began implementing in spring 2017; this is not unexpected given the students that respond to the second question generally report that they prefer solitary work or found the student-to-student interaction in the discussion forums sufficient. While I am reluctant to completely remove the group projects given the importance of collaborative skills in a digital work environment, I have made changes since implementation in response to student suggestions. For example, I have increased the size of the groups to five so that the workload is more distributed even if there are students that do not participate. I have also rewritten the assignments to make them more precise and give suggestions on how to manage online collaboration. I also have been working on a semester-length scaffolded group project that I am piloting on a smaller scale in Fall 2020 in my SOC 100 online honors section (SOC100 NH2 Syllabus) as a social issues project that asks them to investigate a social problem they are concerned with and propose policy solutions. If the first pilot in SOC100NH2 is successful, I will be replacing my current group projects with an expanded version of this inquiry-based practice in my regular SOC 100 online sections beginning Spring 2021.

I also use my SOI results to refine my face-to-face SOC 100 courses. As SOC 100 is a general education course and serves as the introduction to the discipline for students and is our main source of recruiting Sociology majors and minors, it is important that their exposure be one that not only builds cross-curricular skills and content but also is memorable. The following line chart demonstrates my raw scores for my SOC 100 face-to-face sections on the SOI questions regarding “excellent teacher” and “excellent course:”

 

My scores in my face-to-face sections tend to be more stable than my online sections; my response rates for these classes also tend to be higher. I also use qualitative data to make decisions about classroom design through the following questions:

1. Would you recommend the “flipped classroom” (i.e., lectures available online, activities in the classroom) format to other students? Why or why not?
2. What were your impressions of the “flipped classroom” format this semester?
3. What did you think of the course materials for this semester (e.g., textbook, internet sources, videos, documentaries, books for the writing assignments, etc.)?

The first two questions focus specifically on the flipped classroom format and students note that it is, in many cases, unfamiliar to them so this takes an adjustment. They also are concerned about accountability; as one student in Fall 2019 noted in response to the first question: “No, I believe that students are not motivated enough to study the material at home before class.” To address this concern, I scaled back on the “amount” of flipping that was done. While the course videos were all available in D2L for each content module, I began implementing one class period a week as an in-class lecture day. Students seemed to respond to this option well and it connected well with the other major concern I noted over time with the flipped classroom approach. Students also wanted more to close the “loop” and better see the connection between specific concepts and the activities they were doing, which is something I have been working on incorporating beginning Fall 2017 and find easier to do in a modified flipped classroom format.

I apply the same fundamental outlook to upper required courses in the major that are taught on an annual basis, for example, Sociological Theory (SOC 403) and Socio-Cultural Theory (SOC 281), which replaced SOC 403 during curricular revisions. The following chart shows my raw SOI scores for “excellent teacher” and “excellent course” over time:

Theory, like methods courses, tends to be both hard to teach and universally disliked by students as it requires students to read and engage with difficult material, much of it translated to English with varying degrees of effectiveness. This is further complicated by this class also being the designated writing-intensive course for the Sociology major which, according to the BOR, asked students to read a certain amount of primary texts and write a certain amount of pages. Spring 2016, during my first year at NSU, was the first time I had ever taught the course and as the dip in scores in Fall 2016 shows, it did take a bit of time to find my stride in teaching the course. My scores have remained stable in the subsequent semesters I have taught the course. I also use qualitative data in the form of the following questions:

1. Keeping in mind that you are still required to read and write a certain amount across the semester, do you have any suggestions for alternate ways to meet this requirement?
2. What were your general reactions to the paper prompts for this course? Which one did you like the most and which the least? Why?
3. Did you feel that the feedback you received on your papers was enough to help you with your revisions?
4. Please describe your thoughts about the projects. What difficulties did you encounter? What did you enjoy doing?

The qualitative questions added to the SOI for this course were tailored specifically toward approaching the difficulties inherent in the course, specifically the reading and writing requirements. Students were surprisingly supportive of the three papers, though many had difficulty with the paper that asks them to critically read and analyze the use of theory within academic research. Similar to the responses to group work in the SOC 100 questions, students enjoyed the projects but did not enjoy collaborating. To make collaborating easier, I have worked to give students devoted class time to work on their projects on Fridays at least twice during each of the four project time periods. After doing this, the projects turned in improved and students were less critical of group projects as a whole. 

In the final chart below, I have provided bar graphs of my SOP scores in “excellent teacher” and “excellent course” for all my other classes; largely they are upper division and within the Sociology major, Social Problems (SOC 150) and Dystopian Societies (IDL 190) being the two exceptions:

Course titles have been abbreviated for length (e.g., “Sociology of Gender Roles” is “Gender Roles”) and, if this is a course that I have taught multiple times, I have provided the semester of the course in parentheses. Courses are also listed in chronological order on the chart. My scores are consistently high in these classes, even the new course preparations. The range of classes also speaks to my skills as a “generalist,” who is able to teach across a broad range of topics within the discipline. While my expertise is specifically in deviance, identity (including race, class, and gender), media and culture, technology and social media, I have worked hard to learn in other areas to fill gaps and provide courses the students need within the major. This willingness to go beyond my specific disciplinary “silos” is particularly important in a small department and in a major with only two junior faculty members.

I have also sought out opportunities for professional development in teaching through numerous sources, such as participation in the NSU-sponsored faculty development workshop on the “BoPPS” teaching model in January 2016 and completing the faculty training for teaching online provided by Instructional Design in Fall 2017. I have also participated in an Online Learning Consortium workshop on “Designing a Flipped Classroom” in July 2016. I have attended several Office of Instructional Services (OIS) luncheons during my time in rank and participated in the Center for Teaching and Learning (CETL) events such as the “HyFlex” training provided by Dr. Jenni Hayman on June 22, 2020 and participation in the Summer 2020 reading groups that studied Kevin M. Gannon’s Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto. I have sought out opportunities for development through webinars and workshops provided outside of NSU, such as taking part in the Summer 2020 Teaching & Learning Workshop hosted by Alpha Kappa Delta, the Sociology Honor Society or attending Dr. Rodney Coates’ webinar “A 12-Step Program for Decolonizing the University.” I also take take advantage of sessions on Teaching and Learning at conferences I attend, many of which are described in my annual performance evaluations.

Finally, as the Sociology program’s assessment coordinator, I have also been working on realigning my own teaching to the broader curricular goals for the program. For Sociology, one of our student learning outcomes (SLO) is that students “will be able to identify the characteristics of high-quality data and methods in sociological research and be able to effectively explain the results of sociological research to others.” This goal attempts to reach a few levels on Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy; the lower-order skills of remembering and understanding are necessary to be able to identify specifically sociological research methods while a high-order skill of evaluation is needed to be able to discern specifically “high-quality” research and data. Further, this SLO asks students to not only be able to interpret sociological data but also address the larger issue of science communication (i.e., “apply” in Bloom’s taxonomy) which is useful in terms of thinking about policy implications of research on society and social structures (i.e., “create”). Thinking about assessment in a programmatic sense means that, while students ideally should be getting the skills they need to accomplish the tasks in all of their Sociology classes, it is far more likely that our Research Methods and Statistics classes will be the main place in which the learning for this SLO will happen. Being more aware of the overall goal and exactly how it is assessed at the program level means that I am also now more conscious of the need to expose students to sociological research at every level and really dive in deep to explore not just the ultimate conclusions but also how those conclusions are formed at all levels of the program. Embedding the courses more firmly into our programmatic goals will provide for a stronger curriculum and, ultimately, stronger and more skilled students.

Teaching Activity and Evidence of Teaching Excellence
Within the following section, I will provide evidence of my teaching performance through multiple measures: a listing of the variety of courses I have taught and their enrollments, copies of all of my SOIs from the previous semesters, peer and chair observations of my courses, my Quality Assurance Reviews, Quick Check Reviews, and Content Reviews completed for my online Introduction to Sociology courses, and course syllabi from the most recently-taught semester of each course. They have been organized by semester and then by course as PDF files. All courses include notations for any supplementary information regarding that specific course relevant to instruction such things as designated writing-intensive courses, required courses for the major, or if the course included an honors contract. I have also included various sample assignments for each unique course as well as examples of course videos for flipped or online classes.

Fall 2015: Fall 2015 Summary Sheet
Introduction to Sociology (SOC 100), Section N03, 23 Enrolled; required course for the major and general education course fulfilling the Social Science requirement: IDEA SOC100-N03 Fall 2015 | SOC 100-N03 Fall 2015 Syllabus

SOC 100, Section N04, 26 Enrolled: IDEA SOC100-N04 Fall 2015 | SOC 100-N04 Fall 2015 Syllabus

Sociology of Gender Roles (SOC 483), 17 Enrolled: IDEA SOC483 Fall 2015 | SOC483 Fall 2015 Syllabus

Special Topic: Popular Culture and Society (SOC 492), 9 Enrolled: IDEA SOC492 Popular Culture & Society Fall 2015 | SOC492 Fall 2015 Syllabus | SOC 492 Popular Culture and Society Sample Assignment: Country Presentations Information

Spring 2016: Spring 2016 Summary Sheet
SOC 100, Section N03, 17 Enrolled: IDEA SOC100-N03 Spring 2016 | Chair Observation Completed by Dr. Steven Usitalo, 04-14-2016 | SOC100-N03 Spring 2016 Syllabus

SOC 100, Section N04, 19 Enrolled: IDEA SOC100-N04 Spring 2016 | SOC100-N04 Spring 2016 Syllabus

SOC 100, Section N800T, 21 Enrolled: IDEA SOC100-N800T Spring 2016 | Instructional Design Online Quality Assurance Review SOC100-N800T Spring 2016 | Online Course Content Review SOC100-N800T Spring 2016 | SOC100-N800T Spring 2016 Syllabus

Sociological Theory (SOC 403), 18 Enrolled; required course for the major and designated writing-intensive course for Sociology; new course preparation: IDEA SOC403 Spring 2016 | SOC403 Spring 2016 Syllabus

Fall 2016: Fall 2016 Summary Sheet
SOC 100, Section N01, 35 Enrolled: IDEA SOC100-N01-NPSYC-NWLV2 Fall 2016 | SOC 100 Sample Assignment: Zootopia Paper Prompt | SOC100-N01 Fall 2016 Syllabus

SOC 100, Section N02, 29 Enrolled: IDEA SOC 100-N02-NPOSO Fall 2016 | SOC100-N02 Spring 2016 Syllabus

SOC 403, 12 Enrolled: IDEA SOC403 Fall 2016 | SOC403 Fall 2016 Course Syllabus

SOC 483, 15 Enrolled: IDEA SOC483 Fall 2016 | SOC483 Fall 2016 Syllabus | SOC 483 Sample Assignment: Fall 2016 Synthesis Essay Prompt

Spring 2017: Spring 2017 Summary Sheet
SOC 100, Section N01, 16 Enrolled: IDEA SOC 100-N01 Spring 2017 | SOC 100 Sample Assignment: Evicted Paper Prompt | SOC100-N01 Spring 2017 Syllabus

SOC 100, Section N02, 26 Enrolled: IDEA SOC 100-N02 Spring 2017 | Peer Observation Completed by Dr. Jodie Ramsey, 04-26-2017 | SOC100-N02 Spring 2017 Syllabus

SOC 100, Section N800T, 30 Enrolled: IDEA SOC 100-N800T Spring 2017 | Instructional Design Online Quick Check Review SOC100-N800T Spring 2017 | SOC100-N800T Spring 2017 Syllabus

Race and Ethnic Relations (SOC 350), 18 Enrolled: IDEA SOC 350 Spring 2017 | SOC350 Spring 2017 Syllabus | SOC 350 Sample Assignment: Race and Ethnic Relations Essay Midterm

Summer 2017: Summer 2017 Summary Sheet
SOC 100, 11 Enrolled: IDEA SOC 100-N800T Summer 2017 | Instructional Design Online Quick Check Review SOC100-N800T Summer 2017 | SOC100-N800T Summer 2017 Syllabus

Fall 2017: Fall 2017 Signed Summary Sheet
SOC 100, Section N03-NPSYC, 34 Enrolled: IDEA SOC 100-N03-NPSYC Fall 2017 | SOC100-N03 Fall 2017 Course Syllabus | Peer Observation Completed by Dr. Ric Dias, 11-06-2017 | SOC 100 Sample Assignment: Written Introduction to Reading The New Jim Crow and Paper Prompt | SOC100-N03 Fall 2017 Syllabus

SOC 100, Section N800T, 30 Enrolled: IDEA SOC 100-N800T Fall 2017 | SOC100N800T & 802T Fall 2017 Course Syllabus | Instructional Design Online Quick Check Review SOC100-N800T&N802T Fall 2017 | Online Course Content Review SOC100N800T&N802T Fall 2017

SOC 100, Section N802T, 29 Enrolled: IDEA SOC 100-N802T Fall 2017

Human Sexuality (SOC 261), 8 Enrolled, new course preparation: IDEA SOC 261 Fall 2017 | SOC261 Fall 2017 Course Syllabus | Chair Observation Completed by Dr. Steven Usitalo, 10-31-2017 | SOC 261 Sample Assignment: Human Sexuality Final Exam

Socio-Cultural Theory (SOC 281), 20 Enrolled, honors contract with Haley Duchsherer, required course for the major replacing SOC 403 and designated writing-intensive course for Sociology: IDEA SOC 281 Fall 2017 | SOC281 Fall 2017 Course Syllabus | SOC 281 Sample Assignment: Theory Application Paper

Spring 2018: Spring 2018 SOI Summary Sheet
SOC 100, 32 Enrolled: IDEA SOC100-N01 Spring 2018 | SOC 100 Spring 2018 Course Syllabus | SOC 100 Sample Flipped Classroom Video: Week 1, Video 1: What is Sociology

Social Problems (SOC 150), 15 Enrolled: IDEA SOC150-N01 Spring 2018 | SOC 150 Spring 2018 Course Syllabus | Sample Lecture PowerPoint: W1 Sociology and Social Problems | SOC 150 Sample Assignment: Portfolio and Essay

Social Deviance (SOC 402), 13 Enrolled, new course preparation, honors contract with Donovan Kopetsky: IDEA SOC402 Spring 2018 | SOC 402 Spring 2018 Course Syllabus | Sample Lecture: W2 Deviant Events and Social Control | SOC 403 Sample Assignment: Deviance Ethnography

Sociology of Death and Dying (SOC 459), 14 Enrolled, new course preparation: IDEA SOC 459 Spring 2018 | SOC 459 Spring 2018 Course Syllabus |  SOC 459 Sample Lecture PowerPoint: W2 The American Experience with Death 01-17-2018 | SOC 459 Sample Assignment: Presentation Guidelines

Summer 2018: Summer 2018 SOI Summary Sheet
SOC 100, 17 Enrolled: IDEA SOC 100-N800T Summer 2018 | Instructional Design Online Quick Check Review SOC100-N800T Summer 2018

Fall 2018: Fall 2018 SOI Summary Sheet
SOC 100, Section N03 and NPSYC, 35 Enrolled: IDEA SOC100-N03 & NPSYC Fall 2018 | SOC100-N03 & NPSYC Fall 2018 Syllabus

SOC 100, Section N800T, 23 Enrolled: IDEA SOC 100N800T Fall 2018 | SOC100N800T Fall 2018 Syllabus

SOC 100, Section N801T, 24 Enrolled: IDEA SOC 100N801T Fall 2018 | SOC 100N801T Fall 2018 Syllabus

First-Year Seminar: Dystopian Societies (IDL 190), Section N01, 24 Enrolled: IDEA IDL190-N01 Fall 2018 | IDL190-N01 Fall 2018 Syllabus | IDL 190 Sample Assignment: W5 Unkindness of Ghosts Writing Prompt

SOC 281, 25 Enrolled: IDEA SOC 281 Fall 2018 | SOC281 Fall 2018 Syllabus

Spring 2019: Spring 2019 SOI Summary Sheet
SOC 100, Section N02, 34 Enrolled: Spring 2019 SOC100 N02 SOI | SOC100-N02 Spring 2019 Syllabus

SOC 100, Section N800T, 32 Enrolled: 6% SOI response rate / no SOI report generated | SOC100-N800T Spring 2019 Syllabus | Instructional Design Online Quick Check Review SOC 100-N800T Spring 2019

Popular Culture & Society (SOC 260), 16 Enrolled: Spring 2019 SOC260 SOI | SOC260 Spring 2019 Syllabus (Prior to Student Assignment Selection) | SOC260 Spring 2019 Syllabus (After Student Assignment Selection) | Sample SOC 260 Lecture: Race and Ethnicity in Media (produced for 01/29/2019 weather cancellation) | SOC 260 Sample Assignment: Content Analysis Research Paper

Social Science Research Methods (SOC 410), 16 Enrolled, new course preparation: Spring 2019 SOC410 SOI | SOC410 Spring 2019 Syllabus | SOC 410 Sample Lecture PowerPoint: W5 Reliability and Validity | SOC 410 Sample Assignment: Research Proposal Guidelines and SOC 410 Research Proposal Additional Notes and Tips

Capstone (SOC 491), 6 Enrolled, new course preparation: Spring 2019 SOC 491 Capstone SOI | SOC 491 Spring 2019 Syllabus | SOC 491 Sample Assignment: Research/Policy Paper Presentation Guidelines 

Summer 2019: no SOI evaluations were generated for term 1 summer instruction
SOC 100, Section NT1, 6 Enrolled: SOC100-NT1 Summer 2019 Syllabus | Instructional Design Online Quick Check Review SOC 100-NT1 Summer 2019

Capstone Independent Study with Lisandra Herrera (SOC 491): Capstone Independent Study Summer 2019 Syllabus

Fall 2019: Fall 2019 SOI Summary Sheet
SOC 100, Section N01, 26 Enrolled: Fall 2019 SOC 100 N01 SOI | SOC100-N01 Fall 2019 Syllabus 

SOC 100, Section NT1, 26 Enrolled: Fall 2019 SOC 100 NT1 SOI | SOC100 NT1 & NT2 Fall 2019 Syllabus | Instructional Design Online Quick Check Review SOC 100 NT1 & NT2 Fall 2019

SOC 100, Section NT2, 15 Enrolled: Fall 2019 SOC 100 NT2 SOI

SOC 281, 19 Enrolled: Fall 2019 SOC 281 N01 SOI | SOC281 Fall 2019 Syllabus | SOC 281 Sample Lecture PowerPoint and Lecture Notes: W14 Globalization and World-Systems Theory

SOC 483, 11 Enrolled: Fall 2019 SOC 483 N01 SOI | SOC 483 Fall 2019 Syllabus | SOC 483 Sample Assignment: Fall 2019 Final Exam | SOC 483 Sample Lecture: W4/CH4 Gender Performances PowerPoint

Social Deviance Graduate Independent Study with counseling Masters’ student Danielle Johnson (SOC 591): Social Deviance Fall 2019 Independent Study Syllabus

Spring 2020: Spring and Summer 2020 SOI Summary Sheet
SOC 100, Section N03, 17 Enrolled: no SOI was generated for this section due to low response rates (12%) | SOC100-N03 Spring 2020 Syllabus

SOC 100, Section NT1, 28 Enrolled: Spring 2020 SOC 100 NT1 SOI | SOC 100 NT1 & NT2 Spring 2020 Syllabus | Instructional Design Online Quick Check Review SOC-100-NT1 & NT2 Spring 2020

SOC 100, Section NT2, 29 Enrolled: Spring 2020 SOC 100 NT2 SOI

SOC 400, 15 Enrolled, new course preparation: Spring 2020 SOC 400 N01 SOI | SOC 400 Spring 2020 Syllabus (pre-COVID) | SOC 400 Spring 2020 Syllabus (post-COVID – 03-19-2020) | SOC 400 Sample Assignment: Social Policy Online Instructions 03-19-2020 (post-COVID) | SOC 400 Sample Assignment: Paper 2: Health Policy and Pandemics

SOC 489, 10 Enrolled: no SOI was generated for this course due to low response rates (10%) | SOC 489 Spring 2020 Syllabus (pre-COVID) | SOC 489 Supplemental Syllabus Update: Capstone Online Instructions 03-17-2020 (post-COVID)

Summer 2020: Spring and Summer 2020 SOI Summary Sheet
SOC 100, Section NT1, 9 Enrolled: Summer 2020 SOC 100 NT1 SOI | SOC 100-NT1 Summer 2020 Syllabus | Instructional Design Online Quick Check Review SOC 100-NT1 Summer 2020

Capstone Independent Study with Nicole Wanttie (SOC 491): Capstone Independent Study Summer 2020 Syllabus | Sample Assignment: Capstone Topic Proposal Instructions

Fall 2020: all Fall 2020 courses were taught remotely
SOC 100, Section NH2 (Honors), 6 Enrolled: SOC 100-Honors Fall 2020 Syllabus | Instructional Design Online Quick Check Review SOC-100-NH2 Fall 2020

SOC 100, Section NT1, 40 Enrolled: SOC 100 NT1 & NT2 Fall 2020 Syllabus | Instructional Design Online Quick Check Review SOC 100-NT1 & NT2 Fall 2020

SOC 100, Section NT2, 23 Enrolled

First-Year Seminar: Technology & Society (IDL 190), Section NT2, 20 Enrolled: IDL 190-NT2 Fall 2020 Syllabus | IDL 190 Technology & Society Sample Course Video: Week 2 Concepts: Technology, Society, Social Change | IDL 190 Sample Assignment: W2 Reading Response | Instructional Design New Master Course Online Quality Assurance Review IDL 190-NT2 Fall 2020

SOC 281, 11 Enrolled: SOC 281-N01 Fall 2020 Syllabus | SOC 281 Fall 2020 Sample Course Video: W3: Functionalism and Its Founders | SOC 281 Sample Assignment: Paper 2 Targeted Application – “Normal Unpredictability” | Instructional Design New Master Course Online Quality Assurance Review SOC 281-NT1 Fall 2020

References:

Alinsky, Saul. 1946. Reveille for Radicals. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Bloom, B.S. 1956. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. New York: Longman.

Bowman, Nicholas and Kc Culver. 2018. “Promoting Equity and Student Learning: Rigor in Undergraduate Academic Experiences: Promoting Equity and Student Learning.” New Directions for Higher Education 2018:47-57. doi: 10.1002/he.20270.

Draeger, John, Pixita del Prado Hill and Ronnie Mahler. 2015. “Developing a Student Conception of Academic Rigor.” Innov High Educ 40(3):215-28. doi: 10.1007/s10755-014-9308-1.

Mark, Windschitl and Barton Angela Calabrese. 2016. “Rigor and Equity by Design: Locating a Set of Core Teaching Practices for the Science Education Community.” Pp. 1099: American Educational Research Association.

McAdams, Dan P. 1996. “Personality, Modernity, and the Storied Self: A Contemporary Framework for Studying Persons.” Psychological Inquiry 7(4):295-321.

McKeachie, Wilbert J and Marilla Svinicki. 2006. Mckeachie’s Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Pang, Katherine. 2010. “Creating Stimulating Learning and Thinking Using New Models of Activity-Based Learning and Metacognitive-Based Activities.”

Pang, Katherine and Catherine Ross. 2010. “Assessing the Integration of Embedded Metacognitive Strategies in College Subjects for Improved Learning Outcomes: A New Model of Learning Activity.” Journal of Effective Teaching 10(1):79-97.

Swidler, A. 1986. “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies.” in American Sociological Review, Vol. 51.

Weber, Max. 2015. Weber’s Rationalism and Modern Society: New Translations on Politics, Bureaucracy, and Social Stratification. Translated by T. Waters and D. Waters. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.