The focus of my teaching is on developing the basic thinking skills that are the building blocks everyone needs to be effective citizens in today’s information society. These skills include the following abilities:
- Apply conceptual models to real world problems.
- Make inferences from quantitative data and use that information in the preparation of an argument.
- Understand the basic components of society and be able to make predictions regarding change over time.
- Collect and organize data into categories and/or patterns in order to help answer a particular question.
I stopped using textbooks several years ago. Instead, I have developed my own materials that have been refined over the years with the invaluable help of my students. Feel free to use any of these materials if they seem useful. All I ask is that you write back and let my know your experience and the experience of your students.
Conceptual Models
A conceptual model is an intellectual map of a portion of the social world. It is meant to provide the student with a few key categories organized around a central problem or theme. Its purpose is to provide a set of tools for examining concrete problems and questions in a specific domain. In the teaching of a model the first iteration of the model should be under-developed in some respect so that students experience its constructed nature and their role in making further refinements to it based on new data (see section on Learning Labs).
Examples
- Society
- Role Power
- Deviance
Learning Labs
Syllabi
