Connections

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? 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? 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 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 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.

In a major victory for Native American rights, the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld key provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act, a law enacted 45 years ago to remedy decades of past government abuse. Megan Krausch (2019) provides a model for discussing this timely issue with students without overburdening them. 

Graduate students often feel tension as they balance their teaching and research responsibilities. Stacey Livingstone (2023) highlights a unique opportunity for graduate students interested in public sociology to integrate their research, teaching, and public pursuits through community collaboration all while including undergraduates. Through a detailed description of their own project, graduate student instructors can use Livingstone’s experiences as an instruction.