Q. What is the course content and
what are the pedagogical approaches for which you want to draw
on technological resources? Map out the range and variation, including
both the content and the kinds of resources you encounter and
need.
The course is titled "Self and Society: An Introduction to
Sociology." It is required for sociology majors, and typically,
it serves as a first course for many non-majors who are interested
in the sociological approach to things. Typically, course enrollment
ranges from 75-110 students, half of whom are in their first semester
at Amherst College.
Basically, the course introduces students to elemental constructs
in sociology, and tries to do that at both a theoretical and an
empirical/practical level. As it is presently organized, the course
is divided into three parts, which cover, in turn, the normative
dimensions of social life, social structures and cultural practices,
and mass media/information technology and the formation of a social
imaginary.
Pedagogically speaking, I am interested in using information technology,
principally internet resources and the world wide web, to supplement
the course content that is covered in assigned readings and lectures
over all three parts of the course. I would like students to access
a variety of data regarding topics that we cover in class, but
also, the wide range of relevant information found at websites,
including those of newspapers, online journals and periodicals,
"think tanks," as well as numerous organizations (including
academic institutions and professional associations within them)
and individuals. Furthermore, I would expect that the discussions
taking place on selected news/user groups and other "live"
communications would be important resources as well.
I see this access to relevant information on the internet as complimenting,
not replacing, the use that students routinely make of more traditional
resources found in the Amherst College library. The idea here
is to introduce students to the new and different sources of information
and communication that are made available as a result of technology,
and in doing so, to draw them into an evaluative relation with
these sources, in which they are required, really, to assess the
validity of the information available to them, rather than taking
it at face value. Obviously, this would be strongly supported
by the instructor, but a most important aspect in fostering this
critical, evaluative relation to internet resources will involve
a comparison and contrasting of these resources with more traditional
ones.
Q. What roles and responsibilities do you currently assume
regarding the use and instruction of technology? What resources
are you considering devoting to its future development?
Currently, in this particular course, my use of technology has
been limited to screening films, video clips in class, and the
use of audio cd's to play music as it pertains to topics covered
in readings and lectures. In the future, I would like first, to
develop a course home page that will enable students to access
course information/documents via the campus or Five College network.
This will be completed over the summer, if not before. (This past
semester, I developed websites for my courses.)
I would like to use my time at Bryn Mawr to develop this course
website along the lines that I suggested above. That is, for the
topics covered in each part of the course, I would like to establish
relevant links to internet resources so that students can gain
quick and easy access to these supplementary materials as a way
of enhancing their own developing understanding of, say, the ways
that norms work in social life, or the persistence of social inequalities
in contemporary culture, or the ways that the developments in
multimedia and information technology itself are transforming
self, identity, and the society in which we live.
Additionally, I would like to use these internet resources, in
conjunction with other library resources, as examples of a kind
of information that students can utilize in developing their own
ideas for a term paper in the course. That is, students would
be encouraged to develop their ideas for a course term paper in
such a way that they not only used internet sources, but more
importantly, incorporated into the paper a critical assessment
of the validity of these resources vis-à-vis other, more
traditional scholarly sources that typically serve as the basis
of their research.
Ron Lembo
Professor of Sociology
Amherst college