Jay R. Howard

Do College Students Participate More in Discussion in Traditional Delivery Courses or in Interactive Telecourses? A Preliminary Comparison

Student participation in discussion in traditional delivery and interactive college telecourses are compared. Results indicate that the norm of the consolidation of responsibility continues to prevail in traditional classroom discussion: a few students were responsible for the majority of interactions. However, in telecourses students frequently interacted with classmates at the receiving site but rarely with their instructors and classmates at the sending site.

Just-in-time teaching in sociology or how I convinced my students to actually read the assignment

data in my introductory sociology course, I made a startling and disappointing discovery. For the most part, students simply were not bothering to read the basics version of the introductory survey textbook that I assigned. This discovery presented me with two related challenges. First, I had to carefully choose readings that would enhance student learning, active engagement with the material, and critical thinking. Second, I had to find an instructional method that would motivate students to actually read the material. In this teaching note, I describe how I came to select readers, rather than comprehensive survey textbooks, and how I utilized instructional technology through Just-in-Time (JiT) quizzes to encourage students to read them. Perhaps my students had good reason not to read the introductory textbook. Such textbooks have often been discussed and debated in the pages of Teaching Sociology. Rau and Baker (1989) criticized introductory texts for lacking intellectual depth and rigor. Hinch (1988) criticized their encyclopedic approach, charging that it failed to inspire critical thinking in students and erroneously separated theory, method, and fact. Others have charged that introductory texts fail to provide sufficient or appropriate coverage of certain topic areas such as race and ethnicity (Dennick-Brecht 1993), class stratification (Lucal 1994), disability (Taub

2009 Hans O. Mauksch Address: Where Are We and How Did We Get Here? A Brief Examination of the Past, Present, and Future of the Teaching and Learning Movement in Sociology

The teaching and learning movement in sociology in general and within the American Sociological Association specifically has a surprisingly long history. This history can be divided into three periods of activity: early efforts (1905 to 1960), innovation and implementation (1960 to 1980), and the institutionalization of gains (1980 to 2009). Beginning in the first period, sociologists interested in teaching and learning focused cycles of attention on the introductory sociology course in higher education, high school sociology courses, and the formation of sections within the American Sociological Association. Hans Mauksch led a period of significant innovation in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of those gains were then institutionalized under the leadership of Carla Howery beginning in the 1980s. Publication related to teaching and learning, which was once spread throughout numerous outlets has, over time, become focused in Teaching Sociology. This article presents an investigation of the past and present of the teaching and learning movement in sociology and offers some suggested direction for the movement’s future.

Do College Students Participate More in Discussion in Traditional Delivery Courses or in Interactive Telecourses

An arena of social interaction that has escaped the attention of many faculty members is one in which they participate frequently. In the college classroom, patterns of interaction develop as students and instructors negotiate a definition of the situation (Goffman, 1959, 1961; McHugh, 1968) with regard to classroom norms. Karp and Yoels (1976) first identified the consolidation of responsibility as a major norm in the college classroom. The consolidation of responsibility means that, regardless of class size, a handful of students (five to seven) account for the vast majority of interactions in any given class session. Fritschner (2000), Howard and Baird (2000), Howard and Henney (1998), Howard, Short, and Clark (1996), and Jung, Moore, and Parker (1999) also found the consolidation of responsibility to be an operative norm in traditional delivery college classrooms. Faculty members ought to be concerned with the percentage of students participating in their courses, because there is substantial evidence to suggest that students learn more when they are actively engaged with the material, their instructor, and their classmates (see for example, Astin, 1985; Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991; Kember & Gow, 1994; McKeachie, 1990; Meyers & Jones, 1993). A second reason for concern is that research suggests that critical thinking is fostered by students’ active participation in learning (Garside, 1996; Smith, 1977). Instructors can also use classroom discussion to lead students through different Do College Students Participate More in Discussion in Traditional Delivery Courses or in Interactive Telecourses?

Another Nibble at the Core: Student Learning in a Thematically-focused Introductory Sociology Course

Identifying and assessing core knowledge has been and continues to be a challenge that vexes the discipline of sociology. With the adoption of a thematic approach to courses in the core curriculum at Butler University, faculty teaching Introductory Sociology were presented with the opportunity and challenge of defining the core knowledge and skills to be taught across course sections with a variety of themes. This study of students (N = 280) enrolled in 12 sections of a thematically-focused Introductory Sociology course presents our attempt to both define and assess a core set of concepts and skills through a pretest-posttest questionnaire to measure student learning gains relative to: (1) a sociological perspective, (2) sociological theory, (3) research methods, and (4) key concepts in sociology. Results show significant learning gains on all four dimensions, with the greatest gains coming in sociological theory. There were no significant differences in pretest scores by gender or by whether students had taken a sociology course in high school. Seniors scored significantly higher on both the pretest and the posttest, but after we controlled for pretest scores seniors did significantly better only on the subset of questions related to sociological theory. Students who took a sociology course in high school scored lower on the methods subscale of the posttest and had lower overall total posttest scores than their counterparts.

Does the Center Hold? Reflections on a Sociological Core.

Is there a distinct disciplinary core (or foundation of agreed on knowledge) in sociology? Should we define a core in our broad field to build consensus? If so, what should it look like? We address these questions by presenting three viewpoints that lean for and against identifying a core for department curricula, students, and the public face of sociology. First, “There really is not much, if any, core.” Second, sociology is “a habit of the mind” (a sociological imagination). Third, key content of a sociological core can be identified using a long or short list. Centripetal forces pressure the discipline to define itself for assessment, transfer articulations, general education, the trend toward interdisciplinary courses, and the public face of sociology. We describe previous efforts for the introductory course and sociology curricula. We conclude with a discussion of everyday practices in sociology that are built on the conception of a core.

2007 North Central Sociological Association Presidential Address: Teaching and Learning and the Culture of the Regional Association in American Sociology

Abstract In this essay, I examine the role of teaching and learning in the culture of the regional association in American sociology. I analyze the programs of (1) the 2007 joint meeting of the North Central Sociological Association (NCSA) and the Midwest Sociological Society (MSS); (2) the 2007 annual meeting preliminary programs of the Eastern Sociological Society (ESS), the Pacific Sociological Association (PSA), and the Southern Sociological Society (SSS) along with the 2006 annual meeting programs of the MSS and NCSA, as well as the American Sociological Association (ASA); and (3) the 1991 NCSA and 1992 ASA annual meeting programs. I identify program trends with regard to teaching, professional development, undergraduate students, graduate students, and research on higher education. I conclude by identifying regional association annual meeting best practices regarding each of these areas.

North Central Sociological Association 2014 Teaching Address: The John F. Schnabel Lecture—Sociology’s Special Pedagogical Challenge

Instructors and students must overcome a course’s special pedagogical challenge in order for meaningful and important learning to occur. While some suggest that the special pedagogical problem varies by course, I contend that the special pedagogical problem is likely to be shared across a discipline’s curriculum, rather than being unique to each course. After reviewing a three-part typology of learning outcomes for sociology, I argue that the development of students’ sociological imaginations is sociology’s special pedagogical challenge; I then offer some general guidelines for teaching strategies to enhance the students’ success in developing a sociological imagination.

Peer Control in the Industrial Workplace

Abstract This case study of Kleer Windows, a firm which manufactures doors and windows for the recreational vehicles industry argues that the influence of the work group can under certain conditions be harnessed by management in their attempts to control workers. Peer control exists when co-workers seek to monitor and influence each others level of productivity. Data were collected during three summers of ethnographic research. A comparison of the control systems utilized in the production, shipping, and receiving departments at Kleer Windows reveals that peer control is likely to stimulate, rather than inhibit, productivity when two conditions exist First, when workers are motivated to monitor one another through an interdependence of reward—making the rewards of each worker dependent upon the effort and productivity of all co-workers as well as the effort of the individual worker (i.e., through the use of a group bonus system) —peer control that stimulates productivity is increasingly likely to develop...