In the following summary I will discuss both positive and negative feedback generated from the course that I was nominated for, Introduction to Classical Sociological Theory. I will also discuss the steps that I have taken to improve my teaching and my theory course in the wake of my own reflections and the reflections of others. This will be accomplished through a presentation of my overall experience with developing and refining this course, and by recounting the events of my teaching experience in the last year.
While taking a seminar on independent teaching offered in our department, I informed the department’s teaching coordinator that I would like the opportunity to teach a theory course. I hoped to teach theory to undergraduates because it was the first course that I enrolled in as an undergraduate student. It was that experience as an undergraduate student that inspired me to pursue sociology and teaching as a graduate student. At the time of the seminar, I had already taught Sociology 101 and the Sociology of Sport 655 independently. I felt that I was ready to teach a more advanced course. At my request, in the Winter Quarter of 2004, the department’s teaching coordinator assigned me to my own theory section. However, after discussing it with my advisor we decided that it would be better for me to hold-off preparing for a theory course until after I helped him as a TA with his graduate level theory course. We believed that this would allow me to sharpen my knowledge of the course material and gain valuable grading experience for the course.
I spent the Winter Quarter of 2004 grading graduate student’s essays, taking notes from my advisor, and re-orienting myself with social theory. During that time I was able to gain a new perspective on the history and development of social theory that would be very useful in constructing my own course.
In the Spring of 2004 I was initially scheduled to teach Sociology 101. But three weeks before Spring Quarter started unforeseen circumstances in the department left a theory section open that needed to be filled and I was offered to teach the theory course. Since I felt confident having just helped my advisor with a graduate level theory course I accepted. Little was I aware of how difficult it would be to prepare and teach social theory in just a few short weeks.
To put it bluntly, I did not do as well as I had hoped the first time I taught this class. This is reflected in the mean SEI score that I received for the class which was a 3.4. The average department score for this course in the previous 10 years was a 4.4, and I had never received a score below 4.0 for any of my previous classes. So what went wrong?
To get an idea of the mistakes that I made in prepping and presenting a course on social theory, I turn to the qualitative feedback that I received from this course. The first comment that I received read as follows:
"This is one of the few courses I’ve taken where the instructor really goes out of their way to make sure students understand the material. From the Jeopardy review to the class-wide e-mails, he really made things easier to understand. If something really didn’t seem to get across to us, he would make a review sheet and send it out in an e-mail. He really cared how we did."
About four others had perceived the class the same, writing similar comments. But after reading through the rest of the comments it became clear that I did not do nearly as well as I had initially thought. Over and over again the comments from other students began to express the same concerns about the structuring and presentation of the material. Their concerns can be summed up with a comment from one of my students:
The instructor seemed like he was really excited about teaching, which is good…However, I thought his lectures were very hard to follow. My suggestion would be to repeat main points 3 times to cue the students into what is needed to know. Also, the instructor jumped around some. Maybe if he could weed out the useless info from the useful. It was very difficult to study from the lecture notes because he presented so much information and was very vague as to what was needed for the exam.
Besides the comments highlighted above, other themes emerged from the feedback and included: speaking too fast, reading directly from the notes and not making eye contact, offering confusing definitions and examples, having poor guidance for note taking, and finally, failing to offer students a comprehensive way to review for exams. It was clear that if I was given the opportunity to teach the course again it would need major revisions.
With such disappointing feedback and low SEI scores I went to my advisor to find out if I would be allowed to teach the course again given my performance. He informed me that more than likely I would receive another chance. And I wanted another chance. I had something to prove to myself. Fortunately I received that chance in the Fall of 2004.
When I started to revise my class I pulled out the comments once again and began to reflect upon the experience. The first thought that I had was that I needed to recognize who I was teaching. The theory course is not an elective course like Sociology of Sport, nor is it an introductory class like Sociology 101. It is a required course for Sociology and Criminology majors and students must pass the class to graduate.
So what did this mean? It meant that most of the students who take the course are enrolled because they have to be. I had a very different student population than I had in any of my previous courses due to the role that the course plays for Sociology and Criminology majors in their graduation. In addition, theory is difficult for most students to begin with, making it a real challenge to teach. To understand theory and to do well in this course students need to have good analytical, critical, and logic skills as well as a knack for abstract thinking. Understanding or creating theory is not something that comes naturally to most people. Most of the students taking the course are there to get by, not because they love theory like I do, and most have heard from others that it is difficult and come in expecting the worst.
With this in mind, it became clear from my SEI’s and qualitative feedback that I had taught the class in such a way that those who were good abstract thinkers and note takers benefited from my presentations, while those who do not posses these skills were left with little or no direction. This led to frustration among a majority of the students and resulted in them giving up on the class and on me. So the first thing that I needed to do was develop a way to make the class more appealing to students who are not good at abstract thinking while at the same time making sure that I do not hold back those who are. And that is what I attempted to do as I restructured the course.
So what steps did I take? The first step that I took was to create a student course packet that included a more detailed outline of my lectures, diagrams, charts, and overheads. This was in response to the many who wanted more concrete direction for taking notes during lectures. After putting together a free course packet, I also made strides to reduce the amount of information presented in lectures. One problem that I had while constructing the course was that I had just come out of being a TA for a graduate level theory course. In my neurotic haste I included more information than needed to be presented in a class for undergraduates. For instance, I included a great deal of information on the intellectual influences of the social theorists covered in the course. After re-reading the student comments it became clear that the detail I offered for the intellectual influences had confused the students about what was really important; the ideas of the main theorists. Although not all of the intellectual influences could be cut out (for they are important), I was able to drastically reduce the discussions and information on them to a few main points.
Another step that I took was to re-write the lectures themselves. Some students had complained that there was too much information in the lectures which made it difficult to know what was important for the exams. With exams counting for 50% of their total grade I had to do something about this. So I condensed the material that I had originally compiled by focusing on the most important ideas that each theorist contributed to sociology. I also revised the class writing assignments to make them clearer for those who have problems structuring their essays. I made the assignments open enough for students with writing talent to be creative while retaining a clear structure that aids in guiding students who have problems organizing their ideas. Finally, I cut out some of the required readings that were tangential to classical social theory and made them supplemental for those who find theory exciting like I do. Again, looking back I think the major source of my downfall was structuring the class too close to that of a graduate level course and the qualitative feedback made me aware of this pitfall.
What were the results of my revisions? Well to my surprise I was given the opportunity to teach the course again in the Fall of 2004. I entered the course with some new found confidence (and a new strategy) and I was successful. Previously I had received an SEI mean score of 3.4 in the Spring of 2004, with my new revisions and some experience my SEI’s for the Fall of 2004 were 4.6 for a morning theory class! Needless to say I was extremely happy (and relieved) when I received them. The qualitative feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with many more informed critical suggestions (instead of angst) that I have since implemented in my Winter 2005 class. Here are a few of the comments I received from the Fall 2004 course:
Thank you for being an energetic, effective instructor at 9:30 in the morning. Occasionally you went over the material very rapidly but it wasn’t ever a problem to ask you to repeat or clarify a point.
I really enjoyed the class- it was well organized and I learned a lot. My only suggestion is to have more discussion- it’s interesting to see what others think.
I would like to suggest that the tests not be so word specific but based on general concepts and ideas. But considering the difficult subject matter, Rob did an excellent job explaining it.
I really enjoyed the class. It was helpful when you could break things down into more modern terms that we could relate to.
Like the course a lot actually. At first I was really intimidated at the sound of a core class, and even after the first few days I was still nervous. Bu the print-off lecture notes helped a lot…they were crucial in my understanding of the subject matter.
Overall I think you did a good job. The only thing you might consider doing differently is how you billed the tests (how much they are worth of the total grade). I think that the papers do a good job gauging student’s understanding of the course material and should be worth more.
The ideas that my Fall class suggested were implemented this past quarter. They included: a study guide for the tests, more class discussion over the readings and lectures, more time between paper due dates, and slowing the pace of the lectures down. I have continued to make revisions of my own in hopes of making the class more accessible to more students. Throughout the quarter I composed questions specific to the topics of each lecture and to the readings. The questions were meant to aid students in focusing their thoughts on the central issues in the readings and lectures to improve their understanding of each main theorist. Like math, theory cannot be learned if one does not use it and that’s what the papers and now the questions are designed to do, foster independent abstract thinking. What is also good about the questions is that I use them as a source to generate more class discussion and as a way to reiterate important concepts.
Although I have not received my feedback from my most recent theory class, I have already thought of ways to make improvements for future classes. One area that I hope to revise is the student lecture notes. Up to this point the student course pack has essentially been a blank outline of my lectures notes. Although students have found them to be helpful, I have come to find that students are very concerned about the headings that do not get covered in lectures. In some instances I have to skip over non-essential materials that I prepared to make room for the discussions I now implement. What I intend to do is restrict the student notes only to material that I know I will cover in class. This will serve two purposes. One it will decrease the amount of writing that students will engage in during lectures so that they listen and ask more questions. And second, it will help them focus more on the central theories that the class aims to teach. Needless to say I am anxious to see how this new strategy works in the future.
In conclusion, it has been an eventful year. I went from receiving disappointing reviews and questioning my teaching abilities to being nominated for GATA. I can honestly say that just being nominated is reward enough. It is no secret that graduate students do not do this for the money since there is little in it. Most of us are still idealistic and hope to receive the reward of appreciation. Knowing that a student took their own time to nominate me is humbling and rewarding. It would also be great if my peers recognized my hard work as well. I hope to have to opportunity to share my teaching philosophy as well as my course materials with you. Thanks for your consideration in advance.
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