My desire to understand what leads to communities flourishing shapes my passion and approach to teaching as well. I want my students to leave my classes having developed as sociologically-minded citizens with strong critical thinking skills and the scaffolding to empathetically engage with others.
To do this, I use formative quizzes that allow students to improve their knowledge because they realize the gaps in their understanding. I regularly build exercises and assignments off of Brookfield’s model of critical thinking. Together with my students in class, we search for the assumptions that underlie both sociological and commonsense understandings of society, and evaluate whether the warrants for these claims hold up. Finally, we engage in several exercises and activities where the students apply the sociological imagination not to their own lives but to the lives of those who are different from themselves. I believe that this builds a critically-engaged empathy which allows students to carefully consider how we may best build a society in which many may flourish.
While working on my PhD, I pursued excellence in teaching through earning several teaching certificates from the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning, including the “Striving for Excellence in Teaching” and “Advanced Teaching Scholar” certificates.
Sample Syllabi
General Sociology (SOC 107): This general education course serves as a broad introduction to the wide-ranging and diverse set of ideas and intellectuals that constitute the discipline of sociology. While we cover both the main theoretical systems of thought and empirical findings on the nature of human society, we also place a great deal of emphasis on applying these sociological insights within our own lived experiences. Using reflective writing, formative quizzing, and in-class exercises, this introductory course allows students to uncover myriad ways in which the broader society has shaped our individual lives, and the various means by which individuals and groups have acted collectively in the past in order to build a more just and equitable society.
Marriage and the Family (SOC 404): By taking a sociological approach to learning about the family and by gaining knowledge about national family trends and patterns in the U.S., this course gives students the theoretical and empirical tools necessary for understanding how family life is linked to the social structure; to economic, cultural, and historical events and transitions; and to societal factors like race, class, and gender. A major goal of this course is to encourage students to think critically about their own ideas and assumptions about marriage and family life.
Latino Communities Organizing Against Violence (SOC 33062): A seminar course that examines current efforts by activists and organizations working on violence prevention and intervention, students in this seminar gain a deeper understanding of community organizing and the consequences of youth exposure to and participation in violence. As an active participant, during a five-day immersion, students explore the rich cultural heritage of Chicago and South Bend and interact with numerous groups and individuals engaged in responding to and reducing gang violence. Site visits and discussions with local stakeholders encourage reflection on the challenges and opportunities that youth face in the city.
Human Diversity (SOC 307): An upper division course that requires a research paper and ongoing portfolio, Human Diversity builds an understanding of the diverse groups around us, including race, ethnicity, religion, culture, gender, family structure, sexual orientation, neurodiversity, and physical diversity. As a topic that arouses deep passion all over the world, diverse groups provide immense resources for empathy, peacebuilding, and collaboration. Diversity can be and often used to divide, subjugate, and exclude others. Students learn about the legacies of global macro-historical forces that are still central to micro-processes of self-definition and identity inside and outside of our nations. The purpose of this course is to explore a number of issues concerning diversity and is organized to exemplify sociological principles and mechanisms in the production and re-production of social processes that create a minority group and shape minority-majority relations.
Social Problems (SOC 302): An upper division course that requires researching and presenting on a social problem, Social Problems teaches students to apply the sociological imagination to the immense number of enduring societal issues we face. Students develop a foundation in sociological and interdisciplinary methods to approach issues, including investigating the claims and counterclaims of an issue, the underlying moral framework used, and the resources and rhetoric applied. We focus broadly on social problems of justly sharing the earth’s resources, addressing poverty, living together and avoiding isolation, fragmentation, and polarization. Students also choose an additional social problem to research and present on. The end result are students who have a deep understanding of several particular social problems and an intellectual toolkit that can be applied to understanding all of the additional social problems in the world around us.