This two-day, in-person institute at the College of Charleston will introduce faculty and teaching 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. 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.
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.
Note: we ask that attendees fully participate in our community of practice by making the following commitments.
Hosts
Hollis France
Associate Professor
Political Science Department
College of Charleston
Hollis France’s Social Action Courses
Kris De Welde, Ph.D. (she/ella)
Professor, Women’s and Gender Studies
College of Charleston
Read profile here
Kris De Welde’s Social Action Course
Institute Preparation
During the two-day Institute, participants will begin to develop a teaching plan to support student campaigns to be launched mid-semester. The Institute sessions will be led by Dr. Scott Myers-Lipton, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at San José State University. In preparation for the Institute, participants will read two textbooks — CHANGE! A Student Guide to Social Action and CHANGE! A Guide to Teaching Social Action — as well as CHANGE! A Companion Guide to Teaching Social Action.
These resources address all aspects of teaching a social action course, including:
- 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
Below is a graph of how these course topics flow in Scott’s social action course:
Over the two-days, participants will meet each day for discussions about your goals, course models, teaching approach, and sharing examples and exercises that will help you plan your social action course or workshop series. Below is the Institute agenda:
Institute participants will work with this course planning worksheet (below) which explores many of the issues that arise when teaching social action.
At the conclusion of the institute, we will invite attendees to participate in our 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.
Application
There is no registration fee for the South Carolina ‘26 Institute on Teaching Social Action. However, we want to restrict participation in the institute to those faculty, staff or students who are committed to implementing this experiential social action course model. Please note that preparing and supporting students to launch their social action campaigns generally takes at least half of the course content and assignments. Some courses are directly on social action and change, while others address a societal issue (e.g., climate change, housing, poverty, etc.) around which students develop their campaigns. From experience, the social action campaign dimension of these courses takes up roughly half of the course work (readings, assignments, and in-class teaching and group work).