Spring ‘24 Institute on Teaching Social Justice (Memphis, TN)

Our long-term goal is to mainstream this model for teaching active democracy. The world needs more citizens who have developed their knowledge and skills in bringing about positive change through real world experience. While not all of the student campaigns are successful, many have been and those that haven’t succeeded have still taught valuable lessons to those who led them and those who were engaged in one form or another.

This two-day, in-person institute we introduced faculty and staff to an experiential learning approach for incorporating social action campaigns into either a semester-long course or co-curricular workshop series. In this transformative experiential learning model, students develop and launch a social action campaign of their choosing during the semester the course is taught. The student campaigns seek to change a rule, regulation, norm, or practice of an institution, whether on campus or in the community.

Institute Participants

Institute Photos

Institute Design

During the two-day institute, participants began drafting a syllabus and a plan for supporting student campaigns which are launched mid-semester. The institute sessions was led by Dr. Scott Myers-Lipton, Professor of Sociology at San Jose State University, with support from Austin Harrison, professor at Rhodes College, and Bobby Hackett, President of the Bonner Foundation. We used a flipped classroom model, where participants were asked to prepare for sessions by reading textbooks CHANGE! A Student Guide to Social Action and CHANGE! A Guide to Teaching Social Action and watching a series of short video presentations on the following topics:

An Overview of Teaching Social Action
Organizing Your Class
Issue Development & Choosing Campaigns
Change Theory & Building Power
Research & Group Dynamics
Strategy & Tactics
Campaign Kick-Off
Campaign Plan & Evaluation

Participants worked with a syllabus template which includes guiding questions. We will discuss the pros and cons of revising a course to incorporate social action campaigns or develop a new course that complements an existing course, concentration, minor, major, or certificate program. We will also share the process and lessons learned from prior student campaigns. We welcome participants who want to explore developing a co-curricular social action workshop series embedded into a fellowship or co-curricular or integrated program.

Over the two-days participants meet each day for discussions about your goals, course models, teaching approach, and sharing examples and exercises using a Mural Board that will help you plan your social action course or workshop series.

At the conclusion of the institute, we invited participants to join a year-long support and networking community of fellow practitioners who are teaching or learning how to teach social action using this experiential, real-world model. The Teaching Social Action Group is hosted by the Bonner Foundation on the Bonner Learning Community Platform to give faculty, staff, and students a forum for asking questions, discussing active student campaigns, sharing successes and challenges, and announcing future opportunities for training, education, and reflection.

Preparation

The required reading for the Institutes included: CHANGE! A Student Guide to Social Action (2nd edition) and CHANGE! A Guide to Teaching Social Action. We also asked participants to read the CHANGE! Companion Guide for Teaching Social Action which includes video clips of Scott speaking about the various topics in each chapter of the faculty guide, as well as Scott's reflections.

Reading these two books and watching the "mini-lectures" in the CHANGE! Companion Guide allows us to make the Institute much more interactive, with you and the other participants grappling with the challenges of doing a social action course rather than just being taught the material. In addition, the Companion Guide includes all of the articles, in-class videos, and portfolios that Scott used in his social action course, and a Case Study of one student campaign, so you see how the resources are used by the students.

Course Development Worksheet — This worksheet is provided to participants in the Institutes for Teaching Social Action:

Social Action Course Development Worksheet.docx11.0KB

On-Going Support

After the Institute, there will be six checkpoints with Scott and Bobby. These checkpoints include:

Four weeks after the completion of the Institute, send us the draft of your survey, and confirm when you will teach social action.
Two weeks before the start of the semester that you are teaching social action, you submit your final syllabus.
Four weeks after the social action class begins, fill out a survey for the students' demands and targets.
Two-thirds into the social action class, fill out a survey explaining when the student campaign launch dates are and what type of campaign actions are to be taken.
End of the term (May 2 & Dec. 5, 2024): Invite your students to the National College Summit on Social Action.
During Winter or Summer break, fill out an end-of-semester survey on your social action class.

If you have specific questions about the model or our webinar series, please contact Dr. Scott Myers-Lipton, Sociology professor at San Jose State University, who will be facilitating the webinar series at smlipton@sjsu.edu