I like to learn students' names and have them get to know one another. I don't know of any data on this, but I suspect that students have a better time and maybe even learn more when a class is less anonymous.
As for content, I try to convey the basic concept of a social fact -- that groups are different from the sum of the individuals. Next term I plan to try variations on a theme by Francis Galton: 1. Bring a jar filled with M&Ms (or pennies or something that there will be a lot of in the jar). 2. Have students pass the jar around and submit a piece of paper with their name and their guess as to the number of M&Ms. (Maybe announce that there will be a prize so as try to prevent wise-ass guesses.) 3. Collect the guesses but announce that there's going to be one more player, the group itself, i.e., the mean of all guesses. 4. Maybe ask them to speculate on whose guess will be closest or how they think the group will do compared with the guesses of the smartest students or the students who eat a lot of M&Ms and are therefore more familiar with the subject. 6. Record the guesses, compute the mean, announce the right answer. 7. If Galton is looking down and blessing this experiment, the group mean should be closer than any individual guess, even that of the most M&M-savvy student. 8. Ask for discussion. Point out that for the group to be so smart, we needed the guesses of everyone, even those whose guesses were farthest off. 9. Does anyone know where I can get an M&M-counting machine? Jay Livingston Montclair State University --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Teaching Sociology" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/teachsoc -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
