For our new Sociology teacher readers, or those looking to revamp their courses- this post will provide you with a few tips and ideas for designing your course.
*Disclaimer: I teach a semester long Sociology course.
1. First, chose the units you will teach.
I use my textbook for this task. If you do not have class textbooks, I would order an exam copy from a publisher (or multiple). They are free, and will serve as a useful resource throughout this year. You can also use the ASA (American Sociological Association) Standards for this task.
My units include:
- Founders & Research Methods
- Culture & Media
- Deviance & Crime
- Socialization
- Stratification
- Race
- Family & Gender
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| Here is an AP Lang example. |
I strongly advise to keep your syllabus to be 1 page, front and back. This way the most important information is in the document, and your students and parents are more likely to read it. (And you save some trees!) You could even let your creative juices flow and make your syllabus an infographic! (If this suits your fancy, here are two websites (1) (2) that I have used to make infographics.)
3. Include your VIP classroom procedures in your syllabus.
4. When tackling pacing, think about what you want your units to look like.
5. Factor in any major projects into your pacing guide.
3. Include your VIP classroom procedures in your syllabus.
From my experience, it is crucial to include procedures and policies such as your late work policy, academic dishonesty policy, and absent work policy. (These 3 are very important) If you have your students and parents sign the syllabus, this helps to reinforce the policies throughout the duration of the course.
4. When tackling pacing, think about what you want your units to look like.
Ask yourself- How will I introduce your units? Will I need to provide your students work time for a project? How will I assess them, authentic assessment or traditional test? How excited am I about this topic, and will I want extra time to engage my students in my favorite activity we did in college?
In my course, I try my best to introduce each unit with an experiment or simulation. I like to stick to approximately 10 class days per unit, including assessment day. I pace my course this way so that I have all of December (for semester one) for our final project, our Sociology Capstone (I will blog about this project in the future).
5. Factor in any major projects into your pacing guide.
I used to integrate a semester long research project through out the course. This year, I am revamping the project into a capstone project at the end of the semester. You may like to implement 20% time. Decide if this is something you want to include in your course. If so, schedule time for it, and include a little blurb about it in your syllabus!
6. Use resources besides your textbook! Or if you don't have a textbook, consider using these books as a resource for you!
Here are two supplemental texts that I love and use in my Sociology course:
As always, thank you for reading!
