Reviews a community training program for undergraduate students at a small liberal arts college in Alton, Illinois. The program involves students in a community work placement, a community studies course, and work study experience in a small industrial town near the college. (Author/DB)

Describes an undergraduate sociology course that taught qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Focuses on two students and how they dealt with and overcame anxiety issues, subsequently achieving higher levels of learning and new learning strategies. (KDR)

Discusses the use of historical events as examples for teaching college level statistics courses. Focuses on examples of the space shuttle Challenger, Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), and the RMS Titanic. Finds real life examples can bridge a link to short term experiential learning and provide a means for long term understanding of statistics. (KDR)

Introduces an innovative approach to teaching a sociology of education course. Suggests the various approaches to sociology have distracted professionals from its central relevance. Critiques present orientations to a sociology of education course and recommends placing emphasis on the logic or theoretical/conceptual framework for organizing key…

Suggests using classroom experiences as data to be identified, analyzed, and evaluated. Defines sociological wisdom as the ability to use sociological knowledge to make sense of one's experience in the world. States that using the classroom as a sociological event requires the allocating exercise time, distancing to avoid defensiveness, and…

Describes group role-playing activities that have been used to teach about education, criminology, and sex roles. Suggests that role play helps students to absorb and retain many of the insights about the issues involved. (DB)

Challenges the assumption that library skills are not a legitimate aspect of sociology courses. Argues that library skills are learned most effectively through an active process of participation and experience. Suggests and describes a library scavenger hunt as an effective learning exercise. (DB)

Examines the professional socialization of undergraduate sociology majors with a focus on research training. Explores four assumptions related to professional socialization and a cumulative curriculum. Presents data on the national patterns in research training in undergraduate sociology and offers a case study of research training at Southwestern…

Criminology and Deviance Classes are often among the most popular in the sociology undergraduate curriculum. These courses provide a unique opportunity for teachers since many students come to class with an intense interest in the subject matter combined with strong opinions about crime, criminals, and deviants. Because these opinions are often…

Notes the drawbacks of the artificial separation of content and method in most undergraduate, sociology department, course offerings. Reports on the development and operation of a local research center as a means of melding content and method. (JDH)

Describes how the lost letter technique, a research ploy involving leaving stamped, addressed letters in public locations and seeing if people will mail them, may be used to introduce students to experimental method in sociological research. Students manipulated letter location, size, and address in order to judge different effects such variations…

Focuses on interviews with immigrants used for an undergraduate sociology course designed to help students learn about contradictions and commonalities of the educational experiences of immigrants. Finds that students demonstrated understanding based on the interviews; and that there is a need for international awareness among students entering…

Describes an undergraduate course taught at the University of Dubuque (Iowa) that examines the political economy of urban development in a historical frame of analysis and emphasizes experiential learning. Traces the conception, design, and delivery of this course. Offers results of an evaluation by those who contributed to the course. (KO)

Suggests teaching sociology as a way for students to know about themselves and society. Discusses three innovations in introductory courses: (1) rearrangement of substantive specialties to resonate with lived experience; (2) use of stories and film as an experiential world for tracing sociological processes; and (3) postponement of methods and…

Outlines strategies for effectively teaching classic works of sociological theory to undergraduate sociology majors. Suggests placing a heightened emphasis on writing, opening the class to as much discussion as possible, and forming student reading groups. Selects classic works to be read and an order in which to teach them. (DB)