Sociological Dinner Parties
This general lesson plan, created by Molly Scott and delivered in the form of a simple PowerPoint Presentation, requires students to imagine they’re organising and hosting a dinner party to which, in this particular instance, a range of sociologists of religion have been invited. To this end you can either use the ready-made guest list […]
Top Teams
Sociology Support is a site run by experienced (AQA) examiner that offers a range of support for students and teachers through events, such as lectures and workshops and Continuous Professional Development (from marking and grading student answers, through Revision Days to Zoom webinars). In addition to the paid stuff, however, they also have a range […]
Lateral Thinking | Icebreakers
A few years ago, when thinking about how to introduce some icebreakers into the sociology classroom, I chanced upon the idea of using lateral thinking puzzles, for a couple of reasons: Firstly, because they get students who may not know each other talking and discussing possible answers. Secondly, and perhaps more-importantly, they’re an interesting way […]
Flipping Good | 1. The Structure of Social Action
This is a simulation I’ve slightly adapted from Renzulli, Aldrich and Reynolds’ “It’s Up In The Air – Or Is It?”, where they use the game of “Heads or Tails?” to show “How social structures can constrain individual actions”. They apply these ideas to an understanding of social inequality, while here I mainly want to […]
Revision Game: Crumple and Shoot
Crumple-and-Shoot is a simple, whole-class, team-based, revision game that’s similar to the GrudgeBallUk revision game I’ve previously posted. The main difference between the two is that Crumple and Shoot (or as I’d like to call it, “Bin It to Win It”) is much easier to set-up and play and requires very few resources: some questions, […]
Marxism Sim
This is a slightly weird one because it seems to be an unfinished, abandoned, web site dating from 4 or 5 years ago created by Chris Deakin (who has another sociology blog you might find useful). It has precisely two blog posts. One of those posts – “Using simulation to illustrate basic Marxist theory” – […]
Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias involves the tendency – usually, but not necessarily, unconscious – for individuals to look for and accept information that confirms what they already know and believe. In other words, it involves a cognitive tendency to place greater importance on “evidence” that generally supports a position we already hold. This process has been famously […]
Make A Pitch: selling sociological sausages
In response to the silent clamour (that only I could hear apparently) for something a little more substantial and pdfeffy, I’ve created a short booklet based around the “Selling Sociological Sausages” Lesson Outline I’ve previously posted. It’s basically a pdf version of the post, although it both clarifies the different versions and changes a few […]
Selling Sociological Sausages
An outline for a simple “branding” activity that can be used to teach a wide range of ideas (from perspectives to methods). In providing a lesson outline the idea is to make the activity fairly loose to allow teachers to adapt it in ways that suit their particular style and level of teaching. Although this […]
Naturalistic Observation Lesson Plan
I’m a firm believer that when it comes to teaching research methods you can never have too many examples of lesson plans that either simulate the process of “doing research” or, as in the case of Bernard C. Beins (Counting Fidgets: Teaching the Complexity of Naturalistic Observation), turn it into a simple, but effective, lesson […]