I will begin teaching my first Social Problems class promptly at 8am tomorrow morning. One problem: I am ill. Violently ill. I already started the weekend with the Sinus Infection from Hell. That should have been sufficient, but NO. I managed to get it under control in time for Sunday. My birthday. And so I went off my diet. You know, cuz it's my birthday and I should get to eat cake. And cupcakes. And spanakopita. And french toast. And now I'm paying for that AND my headache's back. But I can't take anything for it since I'm on a liquid diet today. Ugh.
Why is this a teaching-related problem? I reserved today to prep for my courses. I'm not too concerned about the Intro course. I've taught it before, and it is in the afternoon. I have 4hrs between my Social Problems class and that one.
But Social Problems is a 8am! And I've never taught it before! And I am not at my best today. So here's what I'm thinking:
I already have the syllabus printed out. I don't know how to work the tech equipment in that room anyway, so relying on it for the first day probably isn't wise. But there is a chalkboard (I went and peeked). So, I'll go in, write the course and my name on the chalkboard so they can be assured they're in the right place. Then, I'll introduce myself and jump right into an activity.
What is a social problem? I'll have the students spend a few minutes
(1) defining the term "social problem" and then...
(2) quietly make a list of what they think are the biggest social problems of today. After some reasonable span of time, I...
(3) put them into smaller groups to go through their lists together and make a rank-ordered list as a group (and get their feet wet with the talking). After another reasonable span of time, I will...
(4) have the class come together and share their results. There are 55 students, so I probably won't have each group share their list. And I don't think the chalkboard is big enough for them all to write their list either. Maybe that part can just be a general discussion, or each group can select a representative to come to the front and we can have a panel or something. We can discuss where people disagreed, where they agreed, and what criterion they used to make their definitions and lists. Hopefully from this I will easily be able to...
(5) segue into a discussion about how social problems are really "social problems," in that they are socially constructed and rooted in certain value systems. Social problems involve objective conditions for which a large group of people have a subjective concern. And maybe we can talk about the difference between descriptive, normative, and evaluative claims. Then we'll go over the syllabus, see exactly what "social problems" we are covering, how we are going to approach each topic from a critical standpoint - why is it considered a social problem, who says so, and what do we know about it, and are there opposing viewpoints? - and...
6) talk a little bit about how the class is going to go (structure, grading, tests, policies, etc.).
Then I let them out about 10 minutes early so I can fiddle with the equipment, figure out how to set up PowerPoint and video and stuff.
That should work, right?
Monday, August 24, 2009
Social Problems
Posted by
Anomie
at
2:38 PM
Labels: teaching and learning
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6 comments:
That looks like a great setup! I'm sure you'll do fine, and I hope you feel better soon.
Thanks :) .
Maybe I could do the listing of social problems like a hypothetical: You have been granted the ability to magically alleviate 5 social problems. Which do you choose and why?
You could also just go over the syllabus, have them brainstorm some social problems and write them on the board, say your bit about how social problems are socially constructed, and call it a day!
At UW students never expect the first lecture to last the entire time. Sometimes profs just go in, introduce themselves, hand out the syllabus and leave.
hope you feel better!
I've taken Social Problems at your institution, and the first day of your course already sounds far better than the course I took. :)
Best of luck, and hopefully you'll feel better in the morning!
I got this too late to be helpful, but I wanted to add that some of my best classes have come out of circumstances like this, which cause me on the fly to do much more student participation and interaction than I otherwise might. I try to keep this in mind, as it feels like a cop-out, but it really is not!
Hope you feel better soon.
Thanks, all! It went pretty well. The biggest problem was I figured out that I mixed up my class sizes - social problems has 75, students, not 55! So I totally ran out of syllabi, and I didn't even try the small groups. But other than that, it was great!
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