The presented paper discusses teaching innovations I introduced while leading two teaching sessions in Introduction to the Sociology for Non-Sociology Students. In the quest to improve students’ learning experience, I transformed the traditional lecture-style teaching that often prevails, as embedded in the very idea of a university lecture, by engaging students in discussions, group work and virtual walk through the city.
It is often typical of introductory sociology courses, especially those designed for non-sociology students that they aim to teach students as many sociological concepts, names, and terms as possible. The effort to define the discipline of sociology and to introduce students to its fundamentals thus often slips into memorization or, at best, understanding of some concepts and theories. But what is missing is the acquisition of a way of thinking typical of sociology - the sociological imagination - and its application to examples close to the students.
My challenge for the teaching sessions was to awake students´ interest in sociology and illustrate sociological thinking while dealing with a low level of student motivation and lack of student engagement in the course. In two teaching sessions built around two typically sociological themes - culture and public space – I introduced discussions, group work and virtual walk through city to illustrate the sociological approach on everyday situations and encounters. In my contribution, I will present a demonstration of these methods, allowing participants of the conference to walk (virtually) through the city with the students.
I find that this innovation not only does increase students’ participation, it also makes the class lively and improves the understanding of sociology for non-sociology students. The impact of these innovations is supported by data from students´ feedback, classroom observation, and students´ papers.
