There is so much about academia that is grounded in competition and opportunity-hoarding. Doctoral programs can be cutthroat, pitting students against each other to compete for funding and opportunities. The job market is… well, let’s not even go there. And then there’s the mad race of the tenure track, if you can get on it at all, as your clock starts ticking and you try to get those publications and grants while prepping and teaching courses, often for the first time. If you’re not in a secure position, you might be teaching courses across multiple campuses or even different institutions, without office space or other taken-for-granted resources, all while trying to use any remaining time you have to do the work that actually gets us hired — the research.
It’s enough to break a person.
I remember my first years on the job. I had a non-tenure track teaching position with a very reasonable 3/3 load. I even had some teaching experience, as I had taught two different courses as a grad student. But after moving across the country, emptying our bank accounts, starting the semester with three new courses (none of them the same courses I had previously taught), and trying to scramble to get publications out so I could try to move into a tenure-track position… Well. Those were long, hard days.
I was lucky, in some ways. Instead of seeing each other as competitors, my grad cohort had bonded together. We shared our teaching preps, grant applications, and other valuable resources with each other, and we stayed in touch after graduation. That first semester, I taught undergraduate Research Methods using a prep given to me by my cohort-mate and friend, Dr. Julie Yingling. It was one less thing to worry about. It was a gift.
Not everyone has these opportunities or networks. I want to help fix that. I have now been teaching for mumbledymumble years and I feel pretty good about how my preps have evolved and improved. It costs me nothing at all to share them with you, whether you are a new grad, an overworked-and-underpaid adjunct, or you just want to freshen up your approach. Over the next some-amount-of-time, I’m going to bundle my preps into “starter packs” of slides, activities, and assignment guidelines that you can download and use as your own, in whatever combination you like.
The first is undergraduate Research Methods for sociology and criminal justice majors. This is a 200-level course at my institution, so that’s where my materials are pitched. The attached zip file has my slides, some in-class activities and their materials, and my semester-long research proposal assignment. I have written about a number of these activities and assignments in this blog, so just check the “Research Methods” tag to find my write-ups.
I hope that these materials are helpful! If you do use them, I’d love to hear from you – teaching matters a lot at my institution and it would be really helpful to me to be able to show that other scholars are using my materials in their courses. And of course, if you have questions about how to use any of these materials or want to chat about new teaching approaches, I’m up for that, too. Enjoy!
This is so incredibly generous. I will certainly alert our grad students and our new faculty.
My pleasure!
These look excellent. I also teach an undergraduate methods class and will be updating it over the summer. I should hopefully have some feedback on how I’ve used your materials by the end of the calendar year.
Thank you, I look forward to hearing about it!
Thank you for sharing your hard work in explaining these concepts! I’m planning to highlight this starter pack in our next Center for Victim Research newsletter as Research tool of the month. CVR promotes researcher-practitioner partnerships; I can see these slides and activities being useful for partners to build a common vocabulary about research!
Oh, wonderful, thank you so much! I would love to learn more about the Center and your partnerships, and if there’s anything else I could create that might be helpful for you.
I am currently teaching AP Research to high school seniors in Ohio. I wish I would have had a starter pack like this three years ago when we introduced this class. Thank you so much for sharing your work!