Responding to Wobbly Classrooms through Scaffolded, Peer-Led, Small-Group Presentations of Personal Learning Goals: The Beyond the Book Tool

Abstract

Teaching topics that implicate student identities, traumas, and/or activism is challenging because students often come with very personal attachments to curricular and extracurricular topics, such as in courses on sexualities, race, gender, and/or social movements. These classes may be described as “wobbly,” responding to outside events and occasionally tipping over. Wobbly classes present an opportunity, however, to meet students where they are while achieving broader course and learning objectives. This teaching note presents a curricular innovation, Beyond the Book (BtB). BtB directs students to articulate a personal learning goal and groups students into collaborative teams to peer teach peer-reviewed scholarship on common themes in scaffolded sessions. This framework allows students to develop their personal learning goals in the context of shared course materials, fosters collaboration and trust, develops their research and presentation skills, and exposes learners to a broad range of research relevant to them.

Publisher

Sage Publications

Publication Date

4-1-2021

Publication Title

Teaching Sociology

Department

Sociology

Additional Department

Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies

Document Type

Article

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0092055X21991628

Keywords

Identity, Activism, Trauma, Classroom-based exercises, Student engagement

Language

English

Format

text

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