My love for sociology began the moment I learned about the sociological imagination: the ability to place one’s experiences in their social and historical context. The opportunity to reflect on how my life and world connected to a broader story set my undergraduate imagination on fire. Learning about this broader story helped me make sense of my experiences, think critically about the world, and shape my vague desire to repair it into effective and targeted activism. I strive to provide my students with the same eye-opening, awe-inspiring undergraduate experience with sociology that I had, and to open them up to a new way of thinking and engaging with the world.
Many topics in sociology bear inherent relevance to students’ lives, which both promotes investment in the material and necessitates the creation of a safe and supportive classroom environment. I incorporate concrete examples when teaching about topics like race, gender, and mental health to aid students’ learning, always remaining mindful of their diverse backgrounds. Additionally, students are encouraged to make their own connections with course material (putting their sociological imaginations to use!) in the classroom. One way I fostered this in the upper-level sociology of mental health course I taught as Instructor of Record was by placing the 35 students into teams and structuring the course around group work. Over the semester, students became comfortable with their team members and unafraid to share their ideas, make mistakes, and respectfully challenge one another. The student who was most hesitant about group projects was the one who most enjoy this course structure by the end! Creating a classroom rooted in relationships made students feel safe participating and allowed them to learn from one another’s diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and ideas. I intend to incorporate this course structure into future courses I teach, which could also include introduction to sociology, research methods, medical sociology, and sociology of religion.
I center my teaching around active learning so that students can wrestle with and apply the course material, which helps them truly internalize what they are learning. Because of this, no two days in my classroom look quite the same! We might be using primary documents from medical archives to learn about historical treatments for madness, debating the impact of gun control on mental health outcomes, evaluating Duke’s leave of absence policies to learn how mental disorders are handled by universities, generating and discussing recommendations for how healthcare providers can be sensitive to cultural differences, or staging a film festival (red carpet included!) with student-created videos about inequality and mental health. These activities help students remain engaged and give them confidence in their mastery of course material. When lecturing is necessary, I use custom slides to draw student attention and intersperse lecturing with discussions and activities. Using different assignments such as debates, presentations, videos, discussions, quizzes, and papers gives students with diverse strengths and weaknesses many chances to shine and prepares students to apply their knowledge in a variety of real-world scenarios. I customize course aspects such as essay topics around students’ interests, which increases their buy-in and gives them a greater sense of ownership over their learning.
I can provide this customization because I continually solicit feedback from students and colleagues as part of my commitment to an ongoing reflective teaching practice. As the most important stakeholders in the learning process, students’ voices matter to me. I incorporate student evaluations not just at the middle and end of the semester, but also for specific lessons, assignments, and activities. These regular anonymous check-ins allow me to ensure that my teaching is effective for each group of students in each moment and have led to adaptations during the semester, such as shifting due dates and modifying in-class activities to manage student stress during particularly busy points in the term. I have also participated in an observation program with cross-disciplinary colleagues whose feedback has been vital to the ongoing development of my teaching practice. This has been accompanied by individual journaling, reflection, and adjustment (when necessary) after each class session.
Graded work presents another opportunity for me to evaluate the effectiveness of my pedagogy and communicate to students my respect for them. Numerical grades allow me to assess student understanding and, most importantly, allow the students themselves to track their progress and identify areas for improvement. I value students’ time by avoiding busywork, making learning objectives clear, and providing a high level of detail about my expectations in assignment guidelines, rubrics (provided in advance), and written feedback. I often devote long hours to providing detailed comments on student papers about their arguments, empirical evidence, and command of sociological concepts. My decision to provide that time-intensive feedback is rooted in my belief in them and investment in their success, and it has been immensely satisfying for me to watch their writing improve in response to this. Students have thanked me for this feedback, which is one way in which I build relationships with them.
Creating personal relationships with students allows me to challenge them without losing their trust. For example, a student who planned to become a psychiatrist had a long and honest conversation with me about how “brain-breaking” the class sessions about cultural influences on mental health had been for her, and another student who received the first C of her life on a paper in my class came to me to learn how to improve rather than lashing out or shutting down. In happier moments, I have watched students become sociology majors after long office hours conversations about their goals and interests. In more difficult moments, I have simultaneously offered students grace and held them to high standards, because I believe that they are capable of excellence. One student whom I caught using AI confessed as soon as I asked because he trusted me with his honesty. Rather than immediately punishing him, I spoke with him at length about what he’d done and why, and we realized that he lacked confidence in his writing. He left that conversation committed to using his own words instead of AI so that his confidence could grow. His next paper, all his own, earned an A. At the end of the semester, that student thanked me with tears in his eyes for the impact I’d had on him.
The classroom environment I endeavor to cultivate – rooted in relevance, active engagement, relationships, trust, and respect – helps equip students for future sociology courses. But more than that, I believe that this sociological training can help equip students for life. I do not count my successes based on how many students become professional sociologists, because the end goal of teaching sociology is bigger than that. My goal is that someday, a former student who becomes a psychiatrist will recognize how cultural factors are shaping her patients’ experiences. A future journalist might be equipped to analyze empirical evidence in his writing, and a policymaker might understand why, at the end of the day, all policy is health policy. A parent might be equipped to pass their enhanced critical thinking skills and open mind on to their children; an activist might have better tools to identify and challenge inequality; a future doctor, lawyer, businesswoman, or whatever my students become will remember to use their sociological imagination. That is the power of sociology, and that defines the kind of teacher I strive to be.
Elizabeth Johnson 