Connections

• Doom and gloom approaches to teaching…September 21, 2023

  Doom and gloom approaches to teaching climate change can foster anxiety, depression, and withdrawal from students. Instructors can work against that by being honest and sensitive, while inspiring service learning, argues Obach (2023).

• How do we get students to think about time as a social and political construct?September 18, 2023

  How do we get students to think about time as a social and political construct? Dawn Lyon (2023) invites students to reflect on how time relates to inequality, capitalism, and power in an accessible and easy to implement set of class exercises.

• Looking for activities that engage your students in public sociology?September 14, 2023

  Looking for activities that engage your students in public sociology? The “Making Sociology Public Activity” by Hollie Nyseth and Kia Heise (2010) requires students to interpret and write about existing research for non-sociologists. The activity helps combat the disconnect between research and the public.

• Sociologist Zachary Levenson reflects on his recent move to FloridaSeptember 11, 2023

  Sociologist Zachary Levenson reflects on his recent move to Florida, teaching sociology in the context of political censorship and how university labor unions can help protect our classrooms and students from political interference while ensuring the right to public education.

• “[I]t’s very easy to use AI to do the lion’s share of the thinking…”August 28, 2023

  "[I]t’s very easy to use AI to do the lion’s share of the thinking while still submitting work that looks like your own" explains undergrad Owen Kichizo Terry in a fascinating first person account of using AI, published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.