Describes an interactive in-class learning activity where students learn about social movement theories. Provides background information about the exercise; discusses the process of preparing and implementing the assignment; and explores the student responses. Includes an appendix and references. (CMK)

Focuses on teaching sociology to prisoners, the benefits of teaching prisoners, and the experience of teaching the courses to prisoners. Addresses how the author took the experience of teaching prison students into traditional undergraduate courses. Highlights the implications for teaching sociology. (CMK)

Focuses on the setting of a science and career fair; and discusses the use of cultural artifacts. Examines the use of folk dolls in a science and career fair. Includes background information and addresses the reasons for using the dolls. Includes references. (CMK)

Examines the need for teaching Web site evaluation and discusses varied approaches to Web site evaluation. Focuses on the course module "Evaluating Web Resources." Poses a possible format for citing Web sites. Describes an assignment that provides a way for assessing students' ability to evaluate a Web site. (CMK)

Advocates separating the curriculum of deviance from criminological theory. Offers descriptions of a deviance course (introductory material, theories and issues in rule-making, and understanding rule-breaking behavior) and a criminological theory course (introductory discussion, theory focusing on the individual and social context, and critical…

Summarizes literature on techniques for teaching social stratification. Describes the three parts of an exercise that enables students to understand economic and political inequality: students are given a family scenario, create household budgets, and finally rework the national budget with their family scenario groups. Discusses student…

Presents a simulation exercise that was used to teach undergraduate students about professional ethics standards. Students participate on a mock institutional review board and formulate decisions about hypothetical research projects. Summarizes three projects and discusses the students' reaction to each. (CMK)

Provides objectives and guidelines for preparing and executing a classroom exercise using superhero comic books. Discusses variations on the exercise for topics such as sociology of gender, social inequality, research methods, and introduction to sociology. Addresses purchasing comic books for the course. (CMK)

Describes an exercise used in Sociology of the Family classes, in which students interact with international students through electronic mail to promote cross-cultural conversations. Explains that students gain an "insider" view into another culture and an "outsider" view that helps them see their own culture from another perspective. Includes…

Discusses the extent to which the existing literature offers insights into effectively teaching statistical inference. Describes an in-class exercise that helps students understand inferential statistics. Explains that students learn more about concepts such as population distribution, sampling distributions, and standard error of the estimate.…

Describes a participatory exercise that will enable students to understand the socially constructed nature of racial categories. Outlines some discussion techniques for use before the exercise that challenge students' basic understandings of race. (CMK)

Discusses typical first days of college courses. Describes a first day activity called "Who is the Professor?" that challenges students' expectations about learning and motivates students to wonder about social life. Presents a modification of the activity and considers suggestions, limitations, and challenges. (CMK)

Focuses on the use of feature films as a tool in "Mexican American Experience through Film," a class in which sociological and cinematic representations contribute to understanding the Mexican American experience. Discusses three films related to the representations of Chicanos and how the films are used. (CMK)

Describes a service learning project in which students addressed the public health problem of rural sanitation in Alabama, which is related to socio-economic status, by researching, designing, and constructing a pit latrine. Focuses on four levels of inquiry and resolution (the social problem, developing and implementing an intervention strategy,…

Examines the impact of faculty guest speakers on introductory sociology students' (1) certainty of registering for another sociology course, or majoring or minoring in sociology; (2) interest in taking other sociology classes; and (3) perception of sociology as applicable to their lives, careers, and course of study. (DSK)