The Students

How Many Students in a Social Action Class

For a class on Social Action, where it is imperative that the teacher has interaction with the students, a class size between 20-35 students works well, even though I think the perfect number is 16-20, since this creates the space to really get to know the students, and to be readily available to them. Unfortunately, higher education institutions have been putting pressure to increase class size, but the above numbers give you a range to work with. It is possible to have more than 35 students, but a graduate assistant or some other type of assistant would be needed, since the students need to have someone to brainstorm with, and to help solve the problems that emerge. And while most of this problem-solving occurs inside the classroom, it should be noted that some of it continues outside the classroom in office hours, over coffee, or on Zoom.

At Earlham College, Sophia Lombardo taught her student-led course with a cap of only ten students. With such a small group, the three different campaigns only had 3-4 students in them. On the students’ course feedback form, several noted they wished more students were in the course to be able to distribute campaign duties and get more work done.

Lower Division and Upper Division

The benefit of making Social Action available to both lower and upper division students is that more students are eligible to take the class. As stated earlier, that this was important to recruiting students to a class that is different from a lecture-based course. Scott’s course was an upper-division course, but lower division students could still take it. However, if Scott had to choose one or the other, he would suggest that it is an upper division course. This will provide students with the chance to take an introductory service-learning course. It also gives the students more time to become acclimated to the various institutions and people on the campus, knowledge that may well help them in their campaigns.

Type of Major

What majors take the course depends on which department the course is taught in. At SJSU, social action has been is taught in Sociology, so there are primarily Sociology students taking the course. The same holds true for Dr. Glazner and Dr. Shakow, who teach social action in Business and Anthropology respectively, they have Business and Anthro students. Interestingly, Dr. Mitsu Naru at Capital University has taught a social action class under the general education requirements, meaning all students from the university took the class, and she reported that several of the students ended up not being interested in the topic. Not surprisingly, Dr. Naru taught social action with students in the Bonner Leadership program, which provides a civic engagement experience over the four years of college, and these first-year students were more interested.

Types of Students

Some students may enter the class being “super engaged”, while other students may enter the class just starting down the path towards a life of civic engagement. Your job as teacher is to create an environment where all students can learn in a respectful environment. How to create this respectful environment will be discussed in Chapter 3, under the Section entitled “Get Set”: Setting the Tone, as well as the section on Group Dynamics.

Recruit Students

To ensure that there are enough students in a social action course, you may need to recruit students. Scott’s social action course at SJSU was an elective, so there was always a needs to recruit students so that it met the minimum so it would not be cancelled. When Scott started at SJSU, the minimum was 12 students for a class to go, but it changed in his 24 years, and by the end, it was 22 students. If you are in a similar situation, you may need to recruit students. Below are some proven suggestions on how to recruit students:

1) Create and then post a flier, like the ones below, in the main buildings where students are:

2) Email faculty who were teaching courses focusing on social problems, human rights, and/or change, and ask them to invite their students to enroll in the social action class.

3) Email various campus programs (Equal Opportunity Program, Multi-Cultural Centers, Women's Center, LGBTQ+ Center, etc.) and to invite students to enroll in the social action class.

4) Give extra credit in your other classes for students to support the work of the student campaigns. This will create a natural flow of students who want to take social action the following semester since they become so interested in a campaign.

Here is Scott discussing class size and recruiting of students for your social action class:

Question

Will you have to recruit students? And if yes, how will you recruit them?

Continue to Building Allies

The Students

Introduction

Chapter 1 — Social Action: An Overview

Chapter 2 — Developing a Social Action Class

Chapter 3 — Teaching Social Action (TSA) Model