TEACHSOC: Re: First day

[Del Thomas Ph. D.]

There is considerable variation in students,  institutions and  faculty.  In some places  faculty read from the text while students highlight.  I one heard a student decide to drop my course because the syllabus was too much reading.   I should say that I have always claimed that sociology is a science and has a core.  That core, social behavior depends on the definition of the situation can be expressed in several equations. Further, all of this puts me far outside of the mainstream.  I am a sociological practitioner and that puts me even further out there.  Of course like many outsiders I think I'm at the center. :-) In my first post my intent was to change the shape/definition of the delivery situation to an active work place.  The goal is to reduce the proportion of  adopting and replace that with  it with adapting. Students are into working 30 hours a week, multi media, multi tasking and spin.  (Or should I say the art of the public lie)  I would argue that 10 or 12 articles at the core can produce more learning.  As  Thoreau  states you should work on what you read.  One major task is translating or adapting what is read instead of just adopting it.  Lets call it active reading. An example.  Mead's mind describes the functions that are part of the brain. So there no longer a reason to use the term mind in the same way we did a decade ago. Science is based on observations.  The reading would be in general reports of observations.  The workbooks by Stark and Barkan permit students from High school up to test theory and observations and begin to master the core of sociology. Del