Open Pedagogy Project                      Introduction to Sociology – Fall 2020            Dr. Parker

Sociological Topic: The Social Construction of Power

Purpose and Relevance: This assignment is designed to allow students to take a deeper dive into the topic of power at a number of different levels. Power is obviously a salient aspect of their lives, particularly at the confluence of the pandemic and the social justice rebellion we are going through.

Focus Questions: 1. “Where does Power Lie?” (The double entendre will probably go over most students heads initially but will hopefully make sense when we go back to it during reflection)

                            2. What makes some forms of power legitimate and others not?

Assessment:

   Pre-Test: During the first week of the semester students will complete an online survey

consisting of the following questions in randomized order.

Survey: In each of the following situations describe anything that looks like power to you, and

briefly explain how the power works.

1. A group of protestors pull down a statue of Christopher Columbus claiming that he committed “crimes against humanity” by starting the genocide of Native Americans.
2. A police officer stops a group of Black and Hispanic youths who are walking loudly along a major street after school and asks them for their ID’s.
3. A nurse at the emergency room of a hospital explains to the injured person that has just entered that they have to show her their insurance card and ID before they can see a doctor.
4. A parent explains to her 5 year-old who is upset, that he has to hold her hand while they cross the street.
5. The State Board of Education selects textbooks for all of the public schools in the state which do not include an information about evolution, racism or socialism.
6. A minority ethnic group within a country has been campaigning for many years to get better treatment and more resources from the government. A small group of them have decided to start an armed resistance against the government and have begun to blow up train stations and other government buildings. The government has responded by sending in the military to impose a curfew, burn houses of suspected militants and round up hundreds of young men.
7. A jury decides to convict a young man for murder and give him the death sentence.
8. The manager of a factory decides to lay off 300 of the 600 workers at the factory because the economy has taken a downturn and demand for their products has declined.
9. A husband, who is unemployed breaks into a drug store to steal an expensive drug that his wife desperately needs, but which he cannot afford. He is caught and put in jail.
10. A sociologist conducts a research study and finds that young people between the ages of 17 – 24 from three neighborhoods in the city are 3 times more likely to be convicted of a crime and sent to prison than the young people from the city’s 7 other neighborhoods.
11.  A social media app tracks your location, who you call, the websites you visit and your purchases. Another corporation buys your information from the owners of the app.

Process: During Week 4 of the semester students are introduced to the project, which will constitute 30% of their overall course grade.

Assignment Introduction. This assignment will help you grow your skills as a sociologist. It will give you the opportunity to develop a question, collect and analyze data, draw conclusions from your data and communicate with an audience of your choice about your findings. You probably have not done this type of work before, but you can do this. And my hope is that by the end you will find it is actually fun, as well as interesting.

1. Introductory video/presentation

• Small group brainstorm –   1. What is Power? Group definition.

2. Where can we look to see Power?

• Hand out project description.

In this project you will explore the idea of power and the various ways that it is socially constructed. You will be asked to gather data, make sense of that data, draw conclusions from that data that you and put those conclusions in a form that you will be proud to share publicly.

The first step will be to form an affinity/research group. This is where you will brainstorm ideas, share resources and develop a research plan.

Step 1: Where do you see power? What interests you about the idea of power? (domain, relationship, topic etc.)

Step 2: Data collection. How can you move beyond your own opinion? Based on what you came up with in Step 1 – think about where you might collect some data – statistics, a survey, observations.

Step 3: Actually, collect the data and see what it tells you.

Step 4: Communicate your findings. What audience might share your interest in this topic? What is the best way to communicate with them?

Step 5. Reflect on what you have learned.

You will submit your responses for each of these steps on TurnitIn on Blackboard, where I will provide comments. We will also be discussing this project in our weekly Zoom sessions throughout the semester.

Open Pedagogy Project          Urban Sociology         Fall 2020         Dr. Parker        KCC

Backward Design of Open Pedagogy Project for Urban Sociology – Fall 2020

1. Where do we want to go?

Outcomes: Through engaging in this learning experience students will demonstrate:

1. The impact of data collection choices on a research question and vice versa.
2. The social construction of identity and its relation to human action.
3. The features and dynamics of collective action.

• What do we need to get us there?

1. The Collective Action Model
   1. The Role Power Diagram
   1. Overview of problem of Police killings of unarmed Black people.
   1. Short history of BLM movement from Ferguson 2014 to now.
   1. Videos: Trevor Noah, Killer Mike

Overview:

This project will facilitate student exploration of a central sociological topic: Collective Action. The exploration will be rooted in the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted across the country and the globe. The specific question to be explored will be “Why do people choose or not choose to participate in a collective physical protests?”

Place in the Course:

The project will be introduced as part of Module 3 in the course. Precedes Module 1: Introduction and Module 2: George Floyd: Why this death, at this moment, in this place?

Preparation Steps:

1. Introductory presentation with video clips about the protests.
2. Small group brainstorm: what different groups and behaviors do you see in the various protests? Make a list and then discuss why you think these different groups are there.
3. Review examples of pundits theories regarding the same question.
   1. Summarize three different perspectives related to BLM protests with citations on Discussion Board.
4. Debrief – list and discuss groups and their reasons.
5. Brief presentation of the Collective Action Model (CAM).
   1. Apply the CAM to an example of a BLM-related event
6. Methodology: how do we know what think we know? Examine our mental model/p-prim: “behavior is the result of motivation and intention.”
7. Sociology – “systems influence behavior”  How do we explore this question of why people did or did not participate?

Assignment:

Group –

1. Select a strategy (interview and/or survey), generate a list of questions and develop a participant recruitment strategy.
2. Collect data and create an appropriate data repository (i.e. Google docs, excel spreadsheet)

Individual – Analysis and conclusions.

1. Working paper – 2 – 3 page, informal analysis paper that summarizes key aspects of the data, connections to particular conclusions and the answer to the question – why does this matter?
2. Choose at least one public site – blog, website, etc and write a response to a contrasting opinion/conclusion or an extension and expansion of an opinion that you are in general agreement with. Publish your contribution and submit the link, along with a copy to Blackboard.

• How will we know when we have arrived?

Assessment:

  Assignment Rubric

	Novice	Emerging	Proficient
Working Paper
Social Construction			Student can describe the processes by which identities are socially constructed through the interplay between individual choices and social forces.
Collective Action			Student can the three features of the CAM to a particular instance or ongoing organization of a group of people.
Data-Conclusion        Connection			There is a strong, explicit logical connection between the data reported and the conclusions drawn.
Implications			The student can identify and describe two or more implications of their analysis for other issues or situations outside the boundaries of the study.
Public Contribution
Audience/Voice			The writing displays a tone and style appropriate for the intended audience based on other responses in the thread or string.
Argument			The writing clearly and succinctly uses data and/or arguments that support the intended position.
Implications			The writing identifies at least two implications of the argument that either refute or extend that suggested by other authors in the string or thread.

  Student reflection

            Each student will prepare a 1 – 2 page reflection on what they learned from this project, which they will post on TurnitIn in peer review mode so that they can read each other’s reflections.

Backward Design – Urban Sociology                    Fall 2020

1. Where do you want to go?

1. Urban Sociology Objectives
   1. Understand and distinguish between myths and realities regarding city life and other human settlements. 
   1. Understand the importance of politics and the economy in structuring cities. 
   1. Identify the impact of globalization on emergence and development of cities.
   1. Identify other forces (immigration, e.g.) impacting cities. 
   1. Identify, locate and use appropriate sources of information for academic work. 
   1. Identify and understand community activism in urban settings. 
   1. General Sociological Understandings
      1. Social Construction of Reality
      1. System model of society
      1. Power as a relational distribution of resources, including attention.
      1. Collective Action
      1. Narrative organization of our perceptions
      1. Method for construction of new knowledge
   1. Skills
      1. Improve their writing in terms of its attention to audience, argument and validity of its sources.
      1. Be able to describe and draw conclusions from graphs, and pivot tables.
      1. Be able to independently gather publicly available, outside sources of information for use in their own research.
   1. Conceptual Fluency
      1. Seeing Mental Models – understanding thinking
      1. Coordinating Classes
      1. Application of Conceptual Models – RPD, Iceberg Model, Trust Equation
   1. Participating in an academic/professional register
      1. Presentations for both an academic and lay audience – oral, textual and other media.

• How will we know when we have arrived?

1. Students will be able to write a 3 – 5 page analytic essay that uses the concepts of the course to explain a feature, domain, or circumstance in the world of their own choosing.
   1. Students will be able to produce a blog, website, PSA or other artefact that can be posted to the public domain that makes use of one or more concepts from the course in its analysis/message.
   1. Students will engage in a project that includes data collection, data organization and analysis. This may include, interviews, surveys and statistical data.

• What do we need to get us there?

Framing Question for the course: What might local and global responses to Climate Change

look like in Cities? Or, Are we all going to have to learn to live under water?

1. Models
   1. Role Power Diagram
   1. Iceberg Model of society
   1. Trust Equation
   1. Experiences of different systems  (in Hybrid format only)
      1. Cold War/Bombing Game
      1. Market system
      1. Village system
      1. Tribal, hunter-gatherer system
   1. History
      1. James Scott – Against the Grain
      1. The origin of cities and the evolution of complex human economic/social/political systems.
   1. Presentations
      1. Evolution of Slavery
      1.   
      1.   
   1. Minor Assignments – formative assessments
      1. Extended writing assignments every two weeks on Turnitin.
      1. Weekly homework assignments to Blackboard – bulk feedback to all through the Week in Review.
   1. Major Assignments
      1. Weekly Homework – 15%
      1. Midterm Exam – (long answer and essay)  15%
      1. Final Exam – (long answer and essay)    15%
      1. Final Project – essay, video, presentation – outside audience 30%
      1. Writing Portfolio – assessment of individual growth 25%

Organizing Theme/Project for the course:

UN Sustainability Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/cities/

The four elements of the goal above (inclusiveness, safety, resilience and sustainability) will be explored by students over the course of the semester, which will be divided into three phases.

1.      Introduction. Origin and Relationships.

2.      Data Collection and Relationships.

3.      Analysis, Communication and Relationships.

Cities are not things. They are not buildings, roads, pipes or monuments. They are cultural, political and economic relationships between groups embodied in particular places at particular times.

Phase One:   Origins, History & Current Challenges

            Through an examination of the text, Against the Grain, by James Scott (freely available to students on Perusall.com) students will develop an understanding of the emergence of cities and the dynamics that have made them the dominant for of settlement over the past 7,000 years.

            This will be followed by a focus on the growing urbanization of the planet and the growing impacts of climate change on that process.

Phase Two:   Mapping Project

            Through the use of Arc GIS, students will explore, individually and in groups, spatially-based data in the pursuit of both teacher-generated and student-generated questions around the general topic of Climate Change and the building of resilience.

Phase Three:  Culminating Project with Audience

            During the final month of the course, students will focus on Brooklyn and/or New York City and the issue of resilience. They will identify the top three expected impacts from Climate Change and using Arc GIS they will identify which parts of the city and the communities that live there will be most impacted. They will then develop/explore different potential strategies for increasing the resilience of those areas and develop an intervention to either the general public or a targeted group of decision-makers to share their ideas.

Stuart ParkerApril 13, 2020 at 3:55 pm

I will try to ignore the fact that Jason’s original post was written on April 1st.
I was re-reading the readings this weekend trying to get a better handle on how this initiative that my peripheral gaze had told me was just a technical maneuver to use new technology to break, or at least weaken, the grip of the publishing industry on its monopoly rents and inordinate influence over what it taught in classrooms, could become the latest new curricular innovation. As I tried to make sense of this the following analogy occurred to me. It seems moderately helpful to me, but I welcome feedback to see how close a fit it is.
Imagine a skier getting ready to go down a difficult ski slope. The folks in the ski shop hand her a trench coat along with her rented skis and she slowly makes her way up to the ski lift. Coming down, the heavy trench coat weighs her down, is very difficult for her to maneuver and she fall frequently. When she gets down to the bottom of the slope she goes back to the ski shop and complains to the staff. They take back the trench coat and hand her a light jacket. She heads back to the lift feeling a little chill.
This second time, she comes down the hill fast because she is cold. She takes some short cuts, missing a several nice moguls and hangs out by the fireplace at the bottom for several minutes before going back to the shop.
Finally when she goes back to the shop the attendant feels sorry for her and hands her a ski parka. She spends the rest of the day happily skiing down the slope.
This is what the first phase of OER seems to me. The trench coat was the cost heavy textbook that weighed students down. The light jacket was the resulting strategy many students took of just doing without the textbook altogether and the parka was supposed to be the right fit where we can go back to the world as it was with students doing their damn homework (finally) with no excuses.
Phase two seems to me to be very much a work in progress. “Open” as a founding metaphor of a movement is more vacuous that anything I have seen in the last 40 years (yes, I have been around), but that is not necessarily a criticism. It seems to be linked to open codes and the promise of democracy, self-determination and transparency. Much of which Dewey was talking about as he was working on his typewriter.
The task I think we face today is that we need to rethink the ski’s we are on and whether we are even on the right slope which is going to hopefully involve more than just having students write new Wikipedia pages.