2021 Award Spotlight: Scholarly Contributions to Teaching & Learning Award

Laura Krull is a co-winner of the 2021 Scholarly Contributions to Teaching & Learning Award. The award winning article "COVID-19 Remote Learning Transition in Spring 2020: Class Structures, Student Perceptions, and Inequality in College Courses" is published in Teaching Sociology.

Nominations for the 2022 Award are due January 15th. More info here.

What was the best piece of advice about teaching that you were given?

I want to highlight two pieces of advice that have really stuck with me. First, use the first day of class to model how your class will go. For example, if you incorporate many active learning strategies and expect students to be highly engaged in your class, make sure you send that message on day one. For years now in Introduction to Sociology, I (like many others, I suspect!) have used a version of Dr. Stephanie Medley-Rath’s 2015 TRAILS activity, “Objects from Everyday Life: A Can of Coca-Cola.” We talk about a can of Coke before I say a single word about the syllabus. I am effectively showing, rather than telling, students that I expect them to come to class ready to participate. Second, I remember a faculty member once asking: if you aren’t teaching students how to write in your class, then why are you grading writing? While I do point out typos and grammatical errors to help students learn, I no longer include a category specifically for “writing and grammar” in my paper rubrics. I’m teaching students how to think sociologically, rather than the specifics of comma usage, so that’s where my grading is focused. I still emphasize the importance of proofreading, of course, and I encourage students to focus on communicating their ideas clearly and precisely.

What advice would you give to someone about to teach their first course?

Use TRAILS (and also, publish activities in TRAILS)! I learned about TRAILS (short for Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology) when I was prepping my first course, but I felt like I needed to create my own discussion or activities to really grow as a teacher. You are still developing great skills even as you facilitate activities you find on TRAILS or modify assignments to better suit your needs, giving credit to the resource authors along the way. You also may find that course prep expands to fill however much time you allot it, and you can be more efficient in your prep by using or modifying existing resources.

For new course preps, I now always identify relevant syllabi, assignments, and class activities on TRAILS. I find this especially valuable as the only faculty member teaching courses in religion and family at my institution; it’s always helpful to check my own understanding of what to cover against the syllabi provided by other experts in the field. Also, be on the lookout for class activities of your own that you could publish and share via TRAILS. I find the submission requirements and peer review process very helpful for further enhancing my activities and syllabi.

I sound like a walking advertisement for TRAILS, but I really cannot emphasize enough the value of the diverse resources there.

What is one activity, assignment, or feature of a course that you are particularly proud of?

In my introduction to sociology classes, I supplement our main reader with a monograph: John O’Brien’s Keeping it Halal: The Everyday Lives of Muslim American Teenage Boys. While I use the text primarily to teach about culture, socialization, and American teen life, I find that through discussions and short assignments, students also gain a much more nuanced, empathetic understanding of Muslim Americans today. It is very rewarding when, even before we reach the conclusion, students will turn to me and exclaim: “wait, aren’t these teens just like us?” The book implicitly pushes students to challenge any misconceptions they hold about Muslim Americans, and teaching this book has helped me realize how much of my pedagogy centers around cultivating empathy. I’m proud that I pushed myself outside of my teaching comfort zone to prioritize empathy and a well-rounded understanding of Muslim American teens over covering more sociological concepts.

What do you know in your career now that you wish you knew earlier?

The value of peer observations. I was terrified to ask faculty to observe my classes as a graduate student. In fact, I only had two observations: one of my letter writers came twice, and while they presumably wrote good things about my pedagogy, we never actually debriefed, meaning I missed out on a valuable opportunity to get some encouragement and feedback. Now, my current institution requires me to have about four peer observations annually, and it’s been really helpful. At least in my experience, peer observation is just as much about celebrating your strengths as it is identifying areas for improvement. Talking with faculty members helps me recognize what I bring to conversations about pedagogy, and their feedback has pushed me to diversify my active learning strategies and to be more intentional in connecting my activities to my learning outcomes.