Abstract:
Teaching a subject matter related to rural society and agriculture at a predominately urban university presents unique challenges. Although The Ohio State University is a land-grant institution, its students mostly grew up in cities. Since Rural Sociology 105 is cross-listed with Introductory Sociology 101, and most students can enroll in either one, the background of its students is reflective of the university as a whole. Over the years, professors and teaching assistants have developed a number of practices for making Rural Sociology 105 interesting to students who initially only enroll in the course to fulfill a graduation requirement and many of whom have little or no rural or agricultural background. Thirteen practices identified by professors and their teaching assistants are described, each of which has been employed independently by at least two of the instructors. Effective practices used to create interest in the course include: (1) application to the real world; (2) attendance encouragements; (3) critical thinking exercises; (4) custom tutoring; (5) demographic data exercise; (6) experiences and personal examples; (7) field trips; (8) guest lectures; (9) neighborhood analysis exercises; (10) survey exercise; (11) testing hypotheses; (12) theatrics and gimmicks; and (13) visual sociology.
Keywords:
rural sociology, interesting
 Download Article | [ ] | 89 kB |
