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DePaul has offered a supportive environment for
curriculum development and pedagogical innovation. Since starting my
tenure-track appointment at DePaul University, many of the courses I have
taught can be generally placed under the rubric of Social Theory. While many
of these courses are required theory survey courses for
undergraduates (Soc 331) and graduates (Soc 405), others are more
focused in a specific area of inquiry, such as courses on Postmodern Theory,
Social Semiotics, Erving Goffman, Marx and Freud, as well as courses on
Consumption, People, Places and Food, and Chicago as a Social System). All
courses are taught using primary texts, and oriented around reading entire
works rather than excerpts or “snippets” of thought. As a result, my
courses are intellectually demanding and challenge students to develop their
conceptual skills and engage in abstract thinking. Below I discuss my approach
to teaching and take on some of the challenges and adjustments I have faced.
My materials include teaching evaluations for all classes. Teaching
Philosophy:
As someone who believes in a theoretically driven
social science, I view the role of theory as the foundation for sociological
inquiry and the guiding framework through which one approaches the study of
social life. As such I view sociological theory as arising out of our attempts
to provide explanatory frameworks that link specific aspects of our social
life to larger macro processes. In doing so, sociological theory attempts to
interrelate a set of ideas or concepts, in order to allow for the
systematization of knowledge about the social world.
This knowledge is then used to explain, predict, and critique the
social world. In this way, I hold that sociological theory is constantly
evolving, and can never be presumed to be complete. In teaching theory, I have particular
goals that I strive to accomplish in every course I instruct: (1)
to sharpen student’s analytical skills by developing their critical
abilities to evaluate different theoretical models and to recognize the ways
in which theorists use concepts to understand various aspects of theoretical
knowledge (2) to facilitate students’ capacities to trace out some of the core
issues, dilemmas, and mutations of sociological theory from previous theorists
as they are reworked and re-contextualized into contemporary theories;
(3) to aid students in thinking dialectically by using one thinker to
complement and extend the theory of another by placing these thinkers in
dialogue with each other; (4) to encourage students to ask what are the
relationships between theory and method in terms of how certain theoretical
paradigms lend themselves for better or worse to particular methodological
approaches; and (5) to strengthen students’ use of sociology
in order to explore the utility of sociological theory for social and
cultural analysis. Since our social world, and therefore our
understanding of ourselves and others, is always changing, my approach to
teaching theory centers on the long-term value of Socratic irony. When
confronted with irony, all one has to do is negate the words of the speaker
since we know what the ironist has in mind. In a Socratic sense, irony is not
the opposite of meaning what one says, rather only saying something different
from what one means. While we do not know for sure what the ironist means, we
do know that it is not what we heard. In
this way, Socratic irony leaves open the question of whether the ironist is
being ironical toward him/herself as well. Like truthfulness, irony does not
distort truth, and yet like lying, irony does not reveal it. Socratic irony
does not relativize all interpretations of the world; rather it leaves open
the question of better or worse interpretations, since uncertainty is
intrinsic to our very concept of understanding.
In conducting my classes, I never view students as
empty vessels needing to be filled with information, rather as agents who are
responsible for taking an active role in their own learning process. At first,
some students struggle with this discursive pedagogical style. For example,
rather than asking how Marx’s state of human alienation is defined in
capitalism, and deliberately withhold the answer until a student recalls the
explanation, I suggest three
interpretations, which force the students to consider each view point before
making a decision. In doing so, I then wait for the selection of one of the
answers, and then suggest that the answer may help us in some ways, but
question if this is the entirety of Marx’s idea. For each response I then
pose the other responses as counterpoints, forcing the students to think
through the different options, until they realize that all three answers are
both valid and useful—that answering questions like this requires a
rethinking of one’s own position, and how that position relates to other
possible answers, that may not only be plausible, but also correct. For
example, I encourage students to reflect upon the diversity of worldviews in a
multicultural world, rather than thinking that their view of the world is the
only valid one, or that “common sense” is in any sense “common.” While
at first this may seem disconcerting to some, it assists students in
developing a more critical orientation when evaluating opinions and measuring
beliefs against evidence. When I
approach all topics of social inquiry in this way, students don’t always
understand the initial questions and sometimes find themselves confused
without a direct authoritative answer. For many students, theory, at first,
can be seen as abstract and removed from their concrete and immediate
experiences of their everyday world. Therefore, during class, I utilize
Socratic Irony to provoke students into constantly questioning the certainty
of their own assumptions and arguments, in order to cultivate a disposition
towards knowledge in general. This disposition is one which holds that
knowledge is not abstract information one accumulates, rather it is an
orientation one takes towards the world. In doing so, I utilize Socratic Irony
as a springboard for the students to make connections not only within the
realm of theory, but to stoke their intellectual imaginations across all
disciplines. Through this pedagogical approach, I aim to develop in the
students a disposition to ask questions and feel comfortable and confident
while thinking “outside the box” of their everyday assumptions about the
world. While I have been teaching at DePaul—especially
while teaching the required core theory courses to both undergraduates and
graduates—my greatest pedagogical challenge has been to incorporate new
teaching styles into my repertoire as a way to reach all students. Although my
preferred pedagogical style is Socratic irony, in order to reach all students
I must employ different techniques and approaches. One more recent development
in my pedagogical approach comes through new ways of providing students with
feedback in their theoretical development. Since I do not teach theory as a
rote listing of concepts and vocabulary, I face the challenge of preparing
students to reflect on their own thinking. It is always challenging to assess
an area of thought that requires cultivation before the students are ready. To
prepare the ground, in week six, I require the student to prepare a detailed
prospectus of the student’s final paper. This forces the student to ask a
question, and formulate an answer to the question. The student must list
supporting points with which they will substantiate their project. In
addition, I assign an annotated bibliography during week seven that encourages
the student to create a dialog between their prospectus and the work of other
thinkers. The students provides 5-6 outside sources from the scholarly or
research literature. I ask the student to answer the questions: What is the
debate you are entering into? And how does the research question you are
asking relate to each of the articles / books selected in the annotated
bibliography? Both assignments are
commented upon and returned the following week with constructive feedback. The
combination of these assignments helps students progress in their theory
training by providing them with a continual stream of feedback and guides
their development of ideas from inception to completion. It helps them to
understand that intellectual work is always a debate and an engagement with
others in the intellectual arena and never a solipsistic or abstract endeavor.
I believe I consistently aim toward reaching the entire spectrum of students
and am constantly working on finding ways for all students to master the
material. The effectiveness of my approach to teaching and
learning is evidenced by the enrollment numbers of my courses in general, by
the number of returning students I have from fall courses into winter and
spring quarters, the consistently higher course evaluations in the winter and
spring quarters as students gain confidence through my teaching methods, and
the number of students I have mentored. Most importantly, I take as the most compelling
assessment of my effectiveness in the classroom is the honor of being
nominated two years in a row for DePaul University’s Excellence in Teaching
Award. Breadth of
Teaching and Curriculum Development:
My primary interest in teaching is in the area of
classic and contemporary sociological theory, cultural sociology, and
ethnography. My courses range from our required undergraduate and graduate
sociological theory courses, to the creation of nine new courses for the
department’s curriculum in the last four years. This past winter I developed
a course on The Postmodern Condition with a focus on aesthetic responses to
the problem of Western nihilism, and this spring I developed a course on the
late work of Michel Foucault, Michel Foucault: The Art of Living. This fall I
will be introducing a comparative course on Goffman and Foucault at the
undergraduate level, and in the winter I will be introducing Michel Foucault:
Survey of the Oeuvre, for graduate students. These courses stem from student
demands, as well as the department’s ongoing need to offer an array of
courses in the theory area. They
have enjoyed robust enrollments, demonstrating our students’ engagement with
demanding theoretical inquiry. It has recently been suggested by colleagues in sociology and in other disciplines that these courses should be cross-listed in departments such as Philosophy, Political Science, Anthropology, History, Women’s Studies etc. This was suggested for three reasons: first, non-sociology majors and graduate students may add different disciplinary viewpoints to the discussions and enrich the outcome for all students; second, these classes will stimulate discussion among students and instructors about the shared philosophical and epistemological concerns of sociology, other social sciences, and the humanities that would contribute to building bridges between social sciences and humanities within the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. |
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Black Hawk Hancock |
