A public service announcement is a form of public, free-space messaging in which an individual proposes an idea with the aim to influence the public's attitude toward an exciting potential (Slater 2006). In this article, the author describes implementing this method across a wide variety of undergraduate content disciplines, including psychology,…

Community college students are more likely than their peers in four-year colleges to experience homelessness or housing instability. At the same time, homelessness is a curricular topic, particularly in social science courses. Given the prevalence of homelessness and housing instability in the community college student population, likely worsened…

Even though drawing, as a form of learning, has been confined to disciplines such as fine arts and graphics design, there is evidence that drawing can be an important heuristic device for teaching college students. However, the use of drawing as a pedagogy in teaching sociology is undeveloped. The article starts by discussing the theoretical…

This study examined possible ways to increase student engagement in small sections of a large, introductory-level, required university course. Research shows that cooperative group learning boosts achievement through fostering better interpersonal relationships between students. Cooperative group learning is an evidence-based instructional…

This commentary describes a two-week domestic travel study course for undergraduate sociology students designed to introduce students to the practice of social research and to the larger discipline of sociology. We arranged activities, presentations, and experiences in Chicago and Washington, DC. In this article, we outline the relevant parts of…

Although the benefits of experiential learning for students are well documented, such courses are sometimes seen as a professional burden for faculty because they are very labor- and time-intensive endeavors. This paper suggests, however, that the time investment in experiential learning courses can be made more efficient if faculty members treat…

Educators often focus on enhancing student motivation and engagement. This article describes an activity with these aims, in which undergraduates (a) learn about theories and research on means of persuasion and (b) in small groups design and record a public service announcement (PSA) video, write a brief paper that outlines the theories used to…

The central goals of teaching are to educate students about the course material and stimulate their intellectual development more generally. Yet faculty have few avenues to assess teaching effectiveness on these fronts, and students have few opportunities to reflect upon their own growth as scholars and citizens. This article details an exercise…

This study examines factors affecting students' performances in an Introductory Sociology course over five semesters. Employing simple and ordered logit regression models, the author explains final grades by focusing on individual demographic and educational characteristics that students bring into the classroom. The results show that a student's…

Describes the instituting of interview assignments in undergraduate sociology courses and how they are well suited for producing the primary benefits associated with experiential learning. Also discusses some pitfalls of this teaching method. (EV)

One of the most basic tasks in introductory social science classes is to get students to reexamine their common sense assumptions concerning human behavior. This article introduces a shared assignment developed for a learning community that paired an introductory sociology and psychology class. The assignment challenges students to rethink the…

One college teacher's use of mock trials in sociology instruction is described. Students are assigned roles as petitioner, respondent, attorneys, judge, courtroom staff, witnesses, reporters, and jurors. Pretrial investigations provide experience in information-gathering and critical thinking. Posttrial debriefing reveals others' thinking…

In a study of class participation, a survey of 1,059 college students and 49 professors revealed that students perceived seven factors in student participation, four of which were class traits, none professor traits; and that faculty perceived three variables, two class traits and one student trait. Implications of these findings for teaching,…

Monmouth College (New Jersey) paired one section of freshman composition with introductory sociology. This section focused on expository composition skills serving sociological inquiry, such as comparing and contrasting, critically analyzing written text, and supporting a position through reasoned argument. The paper discusses theoretical…

Interviews with eight faculty members from diverse disciplines who are seriously attempting to integrate writing into their undergraduate courses revealed their attitudes about the importance of student writing, instructional purposes, assignments, class time devoted to writing-related activities, institutional rewards for these efforts, and the…