Introduction
Chapter 1 — Social Action: An Overview
Social Action and Its Role on Colleges
Chapter 2 — Developing a Social Action Class
Course vs Co-Curricular & Prerequisites
Creating a Social Action Syllabus
Teaching Style & Classroom Norms
Role of Place & Each Semester v Every Year
Chapter 3 — Teaching Social Action (TSA) Model
Chapter 4 — Where Do We Go From Here?
A key role for faculty is to help keep the students on track with their Campaign Activities and Actions. In a social action course, students are involved in a variety of Campaign Activities, many at the same time. This fast-paced nature of a course can be challenging.
Take a listen to Pamela Saylor, at Purdue NW University, discuss the fast-paced nature of a social action course:
Here is Dr. Maria Perez from West Virginia University describing how she felt that the students were going to slow through the model, and then Scott’s response on how to manage the speed of the class:
To manage and keep track of the variety of Campaign Activities that students are involved with, and to provide appropriate oversight, many faculty have adopted the below Campaign Implementation Worksheet as a way to keep track of the Campaign Activities that the students are doing. Please use if you find it useful.
Another way to track of the variety of Campaign Activities, and to ensure that the student campaign maintains momentum, is to use an on-line tool. These tools provide a place for students to respond to specific group assignments, which allows you to document the progress of their campaign activities. We recommend four on-line tools: (1) Zoom White Board, (2) Mural Board, (3) Notion, and (4) PB Works Wiki.
Whatever method you use, Scott advises that check it at least two times a week to see whether the students are making progress on their Campaign Activities. This means that in addition to checking in with them during the one or two classes a week (say on a Tuesday and Thursday, you will want to look at your on-line tool on Wednesday and Sunday to determine if there has been any progress. If not, SML recommends you email them and ask them to publish their work using the on-line tool. This public display of the students Campaign Activities also puts a “positive group pressure” on them, as they can see everyone else’s work.
(1) Zoom White Board
Zoom has a free whiteboard option which can be used in the same way we have been using Mural Board (see more detailed discussion below). Dr. Sacha Klein, from Michigan State University, created the below (read-only link).
(2) Mural Board
Mural Board is an effective way to organize the multitude of activities that the student are involved with, as well as to provide them with real time feedback. Scott describes his use of the Mural Board as follows:
In Sociology 164: Social Action, I look at our Mural Board both mid-week and on the weekend, which allows me to continually provide feedback to the students, and not to lose time between classes. In the past, I would have to wait until the following class to see if the students had made progress on their campaign activities. With the Mural Board, or some other board app, you can see if the students are making progress, or not, with their campaign activities in real time. In light of having only 15-16 weeks maximum to do a social action campaign, the Mural Board has made it possible for all campaigns in Sociology 164: Social Action for the past several years to at least do one campaign action a semester.
You can view Scott’s Spring ‘23 course implementation using Mural Board here. If you like it, you can duplicate it here. Below is more info on how to duplicate it.
You can use a course template Mural Board we have created modeled on Scott’s by following these directions (or follow the short video below):
- Once you have a Mural Board account, open the template using the link.
- Use command + a to select all of the items on this one.
- Use command + c to copy them.
- Open up your own Mural Board and use command + v to paste them into yours.
Here are the campaign activity assignment boxes that each of the student groups will fill out on the Mural Board.
(3) Notion
Notion is a single space where you can think, write, and plan. It essentially functions as a personalized digital workspace for note-taking, project management, and knowledge management, all within a customizable interface.
It is a great way to manage campaigns, build a culture of accountability, and check on student progress. Students manage their campaigns through the classes “campaign board” which has their portfolio details included and a working campaign binder for each group.
The campaign binders is where the students document the work and show their progress on key deliverables. It also makes it easer to “turn in” the binder at the end of the class. The campaign board and the binder pages can all easily turn into an active webpage easily in notion. So students can create a web presence quickly.
(4) PBWorks Wiki
This free wiki is easy to use and provides a place for you to create pages for each campaign and provide a template for how the students can document their campaigns while they are in progress.
Free educators account on PBWorks.
Resource
- Social Action Course Model — This three-page reference document condenses the essential elements from our model social action course. Note the topics and timing of the Campaign Activities. Students can be asked to put their responses to the specific campaign assignments in their campaign pages in the platform you use (see above four options).
Continue to Ch. 3 — Teaching Social Action (TSA)