Inspired by inquiry-guided learning and critical self-reflection as pedagogical approaches, we describe exercises that encourage students to develop critical thinking skills through inquiry and reflective writing. Students compile questions and reflections throughout the course and, at the end of the term, use their writings for a comprehensive…

Two significant challenges in teaching college courses are getting students to complete the readings and, beyond that, having them engage in deep reading. We have developed a specific group work format within our courses to facilitate both deep reading and active discussion of course material. Early in the semester, students are assigned to their…

This article evaluates the use of a "case study group" method for teaching social movement theory. The aim was to give students the opportunity to practice theorizing actively rather than simply learning theory passively. The method provides this by requiring students to undertake case studies on social movements of their choice for the…

The authors describe their experiences teaching Sustainable Cities in North America, a course on both urban sociology and urban sustainability. This course brought students to Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia, and then compared those cities with Minneapolis, Minnesota, on various dimensions of urban sustainability. After…

Increasingly, educators have called on colleges and universities to prepare their students for a more interdependent world. While sociology has begun to heed the message to globalize the curriculum, efforts to implement relevant teaching practices are hampered by lack of consensus on what "internationalizing" or "globalizing" the classroom…

How might teachers help students investigate the relationship between gender and homophobia? This article describes an exercise that uses fingernail polish to do just that. The authors uses anecdotal evidence to describe the exercise in which students pair with someone of the opposite gender and paint each other's fingernails. Additionally, the…

This article describes a departmental initiative designed to integrate the teaching of graduate and undergraduate sociology through research methodology and the completion of actual research projects. The goal was to develop a multilevel team approach within which faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates would view their work as part of a…

The teaching and learning movement in sociology in general and within the American Sociological Association specifically has a surprisingly long history. This history can be divided into three periods of activity: early efforts (1905 to 1960), innovation and implementation (1960 to 1980), and the institutionalization of gains (1980 to 2009).…

The authors describe a pedagogical exercise that conveys the multilayered properties of gender to undergraduate students. They propose a simulation that demonstrates the social constructiveness of gender, maintaining that gender should be conceptualized and portrayed as a process, system of stratification, and social structure. The authors begin…

On the basis of the presumption that the best way to learn something is to teach it, the author describes the use of "interteaching" in introductory-level sociology courses. This approach incorporates the strong points of several cooperative learning methods, with additional features that help ensure the quality of discussion questions and…

In this article, the author explains how she used online blogs with more than 263 students over a period of four semesters in an introductory social problems course. She describes how she uses blogs to enhance student participation, engagement, and skill building. Finally, she provides an overview of students' qualitative assessments of the blog…

One of the benefits of using films in sociology class is the opportunity media representations give students to "experience" situations that are uncommon in their daily lives. In this note the authors outline research in education that demonstrates the role of imagery and experiential learning in fostering a deeper understanding of…

Though C. Wright Mills made a pivotal contribution to the discipline by raising sociologists' awareness of the ideological and bureaucratic content of sociological practicality, he may have placed unyielding limits on "the promise" he profoundly proclaimed in the "sociological imagination." By defining types of practicality in such rigidly…

A course in the sociology of tourism offers an opportunity to examine a world-transforming force that is penetrating more and more aspects of social life. It also offers an opportunity to create a learning environment that uses the object of study as the medium of study. This article examines how instructors can use tourism to teach the sociology…

One of the unique promises of sociology is to illuminate the intersection of the personal and public by encouraging largely individually-oriented students to examine interrelationships between themselves and the social world. This can be an especially challenging task when teaching introductory sociology courses that are populated largely by…