If you’re not familiar with the work of Dr. Jill Swale the easiest way to describe it is that she brings a creative dimension to sociology teaching and learning through the application of critical thinking. This fusion has, over the years, produced some very interesting and innovative ways to teach a-level sociology, particularly the sociology of crime and deviance.
As luck would have it I’ve come across some of the stuff Jill produced for the ATSS journal Social Science Teacher (and yes, it was in the filing cabinet, in case you were wondering). Once I’ve discovered a way of turning the scanner up to 11, I should be able to crank some of it out for your greater delectation. And teaching.
Anyway, the first example is a resource that provides a series of ways to explore and investigate different types of crime – state, green, corporate, etc. – related to globalisation.
The stimulus material was created around 2007 with a stated rationale of “updating the teaching of crime and deviance by incorporating examples from recent news”, so if you decide to use the resource you’ll need to add some more up-to-date material to the stuff supplied. Having said this, the supplied materials have both historical and contemporary relevance and probably just require a little tweaking rather than a radical reappraisal.
If you want to add some short video resources have a look at our YouTube Channel:
Primary and Secondary Green Crime
The Social Construction of Green Crime
The need to update parts of the resource shouldn’t, however, detract from its basic premise – encouraging independent learning in your students that can be carried-out by using the resource in a couple of suggested ways:
1. Teacher as facilitator involves standing back from the work being done in small groups, offering help and guidance when and where it’s required. The emphasis for this approach is teacher observation plus self and peer assessment.
2. “Guided independent” learning involves the teacher taking a more structured, hands-on approach, with a combination of whole class and small group teaching and learning.