Best Practices
Revising the syllabi
The department has regularly revised its syllabi to keep up with global and national developments and trends in academics. The Department has introduced some unique courses and novel course components across our syllabi. For example, Sociology of Food and Sociology of the Life Course.
Ludic activities
The department upholds the practice of learning sociology and anthropology as a two-way process between the student and the teacher. The learning here takes place from both sides. Participative learning techniques are used involving different kinds of activities as stated below.
Within the discipline of sociology: Some ludic activities were used wherein some concepts within sociology were identified and through the use of Pictionary (a word guessing game using visuals) students were encouraged to draw out the concept and help the class recognize them. It is a fun but extremely inclusive activity especially where it helps students to remember a concept easily, as now it has a visual touch to it as well. At the First year BA level, for the anthropology course, students worked towards an exhibition based on specifics under an overarching theme. They put out stalls: that display information in a variety of forms ranging from artifacts, charts, food etc. This has been incorporated as a part of their second internal assessment.
In order to engage with the idea of development, disadvantage and privilege, a privilege walk is conducted where each class is made to stand in a line and a set of questions asked to them based on which they move ahead to a positive answer and back for a negative one. At the end, it demonstrates through a form of self-reflection the magnitude of privilege and disadvantage that peers have experienced in their lives. Generally, this is held at the second year bachelor’s level as it aligns with the paper in Sociology on Classical theories. However, this year, on 27 February 2020 it was organised also for the First Year BA class in Sociology. This was for the unit on Poverty, Welfare and Aid/Help/Charity.
Within the domain of anthropology and applied components: Students are made to move out of the classroom space and asked to document the information available within the college premises [due permissions are taken from authorities for the movement of students] on specific themes ranging from theory (e.g., Victor Turner) to IEC (Information, Education and Communication) available for students in the form of charts, advertisements related to themes within leisure, literature and social interaction. A typical class is at times also split into groups created on a random basis and they are each allotted a theme alongside an article/theory/perspective/concept. These are oftentimes sub sections or parts to an overarching theme/theory/topic. This ensures that students learn to work together – which takes care of the differing intellectual capacities of students and helps them engage with their peers and learn and unlearn new dimensions to a perspective.
Classroom participation
Students are often also asked to speak up their views which they gather through different information sources than the ones accessed by teachers. This builds a healthy connect between the duo and ensures that newer ideas and methods are brought together into the academic space. This builds the knowledge resource but also provides for training in critical learning and thinking. Lastly, students are encouraged to speak in Hindi or Marathi (considering these are two languages besides English that our faculty are well versed with) to express themselves. It ensures that students learn to be open about their view but also their language skill set. Here we take care of a growing concern to 'perform' like peers and thus 'fit in' to the system. This at times discourages students to speak up due to a language barrier. So we open up the space to more democratic learning that is not burdened by stereotypes about accurate knowledge and learning.
The Inter-class Mentorship Program
The department endorses a unique student-run mentorship program between First Year and Third Year students studying Sociology and Anthropology. The program ensures that FY mentees are allotted TY mentors who studied under the same subject combinations, in order to provide better insights into interdisciplinary approaches to Sociology and Anthropology. This program included the Third Year students providing feedback and guidance with assignments, sharing of additional readings and references.