Power Notes
In the normal course of events Power Notes are a simple way to organise your note-taking. If push-comes-to-shove, however, they can also be a very effective way to re-organise your conventional linear notes to make them more revision-friendly. Although there are a variety of patterned / visual note-taking techniques around, it’s a good bet the […]
Defining Religion | 2: PowerPoint
You know that thing they say about buses – you wait ages for one and then two arrive at once? Well, by what some might call a mysterious and inexplicable coincidence, the same seems to be true of PowerPoint Presentations on religion. Having seen neither hide nor hair of anything vaguely religious-looking on the site […]
Defining Religion: PowerPoint
This PowerPoint Presentation is designed to be a fairly simple introduction to the topic of religion by suggesting how it can be defined in terms of three main criteria: It introduces students, in other words, to some instances of how religious behaviour differs from other types of non-religious (secular) behaviour. As such, it’s a perfectly […]
Structuration: A Bluffer’s Guide
While A-level students are usually well-versed in the difference between structural and action approaches, a lot less time, effort and teaching tends to given-over to alternative perspectives, such as Structuration. Which is a national disgrace bit disappointing. To remedy this potential learning deficit I’ve put together this quick ‘n’ dirty guide to the main features […]
Anticipation Guides
Although Anticipation Guides are similar to pre-questioning in both form and purpose – they encourage much the same kinds of skills – there are significant differences between the two approaches. Where pre-questioning asks students to predict the answers to a set of questions they receive before being exposed to a lecture, video or reading, Anticipation […]
PowerPoint: The ABC of Investigating
This spin-off from the burgeoning Sociological Detectives Universe™ is a vehicle by which you can simply and not-a-little-secretly introduce a soupcon of Study Skills into what we’re contractually obliged to call “The Student eXperience” (sic). In other words this PowerPoint Presentation is a slightly different way to encourage your students to take information you provide […]
Podcasts with Pictures: Learning Academy
Another in the “Podcasts with Pictures” series designed to bring to your attention video materials you or your students might find useful. In this instance we have a series of “video lessons” created by The Learning Academy. Each of the 14 lessons lasts between 10 and 15 minutes and consists of someone talking about a […]
Origins of Sociology: PowerPoint
This new PowerPoint Presentation introduces students to some (okay, 9) of Sociology’s founders, from the Big Three of Marx, Durkheim and Weber to lesser-known, but equally important in their own way, names such as Harriet Martineau and William Du Bois. And while Sociology Specifications in the UK no-longer feature discrete sections on the Founders of […]
Situational Action Theory
Most a-level teachers and students will probably be most familiar with Per-Olof Wikstrom’s work on the Peterborough Adolescent Development Study (PADS), a longitudinal study of youth crime in a “provincial English town”. One that sits mid-way between the teeming Birmingham metropolis and Norwich. Which, with the best will in the world, can neither be described […]
Crime and Social Disadvantage: The Evidence
One of the more-interesting things about the use of Situational Action Theory (SAT) to explore the relationship between crime and social disadvantage is that it developed alongside Wikstrom’s Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+). This longitudinal study of young people’s behaviour in the early part of the 21st century has proven to be […]