Name
Carrie Friese and Amani Bhobe
Department
Sociology
Context
SO492 is a core or semi-core course on the MSc Culture & Society, MSc Economy & Society and MSc Sociology. For the last five-plus years, it has been capped at 78 students and taught as a 1 hour lecture plus 3 x 90 minute seminars. It has regularly over recruited. The teaching has been shared between 2-3 faculty members who give the lecture and seminars for the weeks that they are assigned to.
Details
With support from a Catalyst Award from the Eden Centre, in 2025-26 we trialled teaching SO492 instead as a 3 hour ‘Harvard style’ large group workshop. One faculty member (Carrie Friese) taught the entire course with the support of a Graduate Teaching Assistant (Amani Bhobe).
In order to support the shift, several changes were made:
- a Research Diary provided students with a means to keep track of their work across the term. Activities in the Research Diary were incorporated into the workshop to guide students in the research process;
- a GTA in the workshops supported teaching a large group and also held office hours;
- learning technologies in teaching (e.g. Mentimeter);
- pre-recorded small-group student presentations were used in the workshop; the small groups had a dedicated and private workspace allocated on Moodle;
- case studies were included in the teaching.
Aims of the project
Our aims were associated with key pedagogic approaches:
Learning by doing, including practical materials and/or class simulations, helps students better retain material (Morgan, Whorton, & Gunsalus, 2000), feel confident that they could complete a research project, and apply their learning better in practice (Wagner, Kawulich and Garner, 2019).
Reflective activities enable meaningful connections between practical work and theoretical concepts, and critical assessment of which strategies proved successful.
Team-based learning develops greater verbal expression and creative thinking skills, and stronger interpersonal connections between students.
Impacts and challenges
Teaching in a single, three hour workshop had several benefits:
- more fluid movement between lecture components, discussion and activities;
- all students benefitted from learning from one another as the pool of students who spoke in class was larger than in smaller seminars;
- the inclusion of a GTA in teaching methods was very helpful as the voice of a more relatable researcher was articulated and this allowed for more office hours to be available;
- new formats for learning could be included (e.g., debates, case studies, doing research activities in the workshop itself, small group work).
Students reported the positive elements of the course were its clarity, its rigorousness, the practice-based elements and its interactive elements. Students found the Research Diary useful and this is a beneficial improvement to the course.
Some of the challenges that we experienced included:
- the students did not want to use the microphones, reducing audibility
- small group activities were a challenge because of noise levels, reducing quieter students’ opportunity to speak;
- students did not make of use the student forum on Moodle;
- technical difficulties meant lost time;
- the length of a three-hour seminar was challenging for some students, with one 15 minute break not being sufficient;
- we did notice a decline in attendance as the term went on.
Advice to colleagues
Possible changes that could be made for future use:
- Students were assigned to a small group to give a pre-recorded presentation for one week. These small groups could become a feature of the course, completing the activity for each week outside of the classroom. Groups could be assigned based on students’ MSc. This could also reduce the amount of small group work done in the workshop and the problem of noise levels.
- The Research Diary could be further developed if small group work is expanded. Indeed, one recommendation from a student was to create ‘homework’ assignments to give more depth to small group activities.
- The presentations could be given in person to address technical challenges. Inclusion plans will need to be attended to, however, and alternatives made available.
- Class participation could be a small percentage of the mark on the course, with the GTA responsible for noting participation in seminar discussion. To address inclusion, the class forum on Moodle would be an option that the GTA would also monitor.
Full report, including a survey of teaching formats from other institutions.