WEEK

Chapter/Module

Student learning objectives: Students will

Methods

Faculty

1

Intro to course & syllabus

Intro/Chap1: Theory & Critical thinking

Resource person/s speak to using software with presentations &/or points in writing essays.

Bill: “Critical thinking & Group skills”

Defining social problems

Role of theory in analyzing social problems

Political perspectives: a common thread: Liberal vs. conservative

Bill Jamison

Tom Meyer

Susan Shearer

2

Chap. 2 Poverty & Wealth (integrate topics from Education

 
3-Step Class Preparation: 
1. Read Chapter 2. Your text suggests that you visit the following web sites.  However, these sites are frequently inactive.  If these sites are active, then ...
2. Condence what you discover about the working poor into three main points by visiting http://www.bls.go/cps/cpswp2000.htm .
3.  Using one paragraph that includes a theme statement and a conclusion, write down what strikes you about homelessness after visiting http://www.usmayors.org/uscm/hungersurvey/hunger2004.pdf.
If inactive, you should report what a search for working poor and homelessness uncovers using http://www.google.com .

In-class Learning Objectives

Ø       Recognize what Lorenz curves tell us about how income and wealth are distributed amongst the United States population, and how poverty is measured for U.S. families.

Ø       Grasp the relative importance that location within the U.S., race, age, marital status, number of household persons, and education have upon annual household income in the U.S.

Ø       Learn how to discover, as members of small briefing teams, what the gap between the rich and the poor looks and feels like in specific countries on foreign continents, and brief your findings to the class.

Tom

3

Chap. 13. Family

Ø       Appreciate the debate over family definitions

Ø       Identify controversies regarding family life: cohabitation, single parenting, same sex marriages

Ø       Consider approaches to family problems: structural-functional, symbolic interaction, conflict.

Ø       Distinguish between conservative and liberal solutions to family issues.

Preclass assignment

Student debate

Susan

4

Crime

Analyze an article re: crime

Bill

5

GROUP PRESENTATIONS   (choice of topics from 3 previous topics??)

5 groups have 25 minutes each.

6

Inequalities of Race, Gender & age

Ø       Identify current trends in the US for race, ethnicity and age?

Ø       Appreciate the social construction of race, ethnicity, and gender.

Ø       Describe the issues associated with race & ethnicity today: prejudice, discrimination, racial profiling

Ø       Understand the inequalities associated with race & ethnicity from a structural-functional view, symbolic interaction view, and conflict view.

Ø       Appreciate solutions to issues associated with race and ethnicity from the key political perspectives.

Ø       Understand gender inequality from the three theoretical perspectives.

Ø       Describe solutions to gender inequality from the major political perspectives.

Ø       Identify the trends  in life expectancy & issues associated with aging in America today. (social security, medicare)

Ø       Consider approaches to solutions to providing for our aging population from the political perspectives.

Preclass assignment

Case studies

Susan

7

Ch 16 Population & Global inequality

3-Step Class Preparation:  (Split into 3 groups before this class is scheduled.)
1. Everyone read Chapter 16.
2. Group A:  Condence what you discover into three main points by visiting  http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.0.html and report your findings to the class.
. Group B:  Condence what you discover into three main points by visiting http://worldhunger.org and report your findings to the class.
Group C:  Compose your own "declaration of rights" after trying to find that of the United Nations by visiting http://un.org/rights/50/decla.htm .  If inactive, report what declaration of rights united nations returns from an http://www.google.com search.
 

In-class Learning Objectives:

Ø       Read and share with one another what is famously known as the "Dismal Theory" from the original 1798 treatise by Thomas Robert Malthus at http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.0.html

or

Ø       Identify the population pyramids for a variety of nations, including the U.S., and decide upon likely differences upon future living standards in these countries.

Ø       Try to discover the number of people who die from hunger hourly within the world, and summarize your findings before the class from http://www.worldhunger.org .

or

Ø       Identify and categorize the Developing economies, the Transition economies and the Advanced economies using population and average daily income (measured in U.S. dollars).

Ø       Clarify what could be a  United Nations Declaration of Human Rights after trying to visit http://un.org/rights/50/decla.htm . (Put your own thinking cap on, if necessary.  This website is not always "alive.")

or

Ø       (1) Discover the truth of the adage "time is your ally when your use it" and "time is your enemy when you ignore it" by applying the rule of 72 to the returns in the stock market using the "Dogs of the Dow" theory. 
(2) After class, try to discover the annual rate of return this theory has produced, by typing dogs of the dow into an http://www.google.com search.
 

Tom

8

Sexuality & Alcohol & drugs

Sexual Harassment,  Pornography

(take home assignment re: Drugs & alcohol issues in VA.,)

Bill

9

GROUP PRESENTATIONS?

10

Physical & Mental Health

(Global perspective on health)

Comparison of Health care systems globally.

Is there a crisis with US health care today?

Deinstitutionalization & the homeless

Approaches to solutions for health care?

Susan

11

Ch 18 War & Terrorism

(Bill) Terror as a political tool

Civil Liberties and Anti terror initiatives

Anti terror initiatives and race, ethnicity, religious discrimination.

VIDEO CONFERENCE WITH WALES (to be scheduled?)

WAR

2-Step Class Preparation:
1.  Everyone read Ch 18.
2.  Using the Internet or other resources:
Everyone should try and discover from the past 3000 years, how many of those years have been years of world peace.  Share your findings in class.
 

In-class Learning Objectives:

Ø       (1) Assess the effect of technology upon warfare, and (2) consider the causes and the consequences of :
1.  The U.S. civil war
2.  World War II
3.  Viet Nam
4.  Gulf Wars I and II

Bill & Tom

12

Technology & Environment

Bill

13

Ch 12 Work, Workplace & Politics

Class Preparation:
1.  Everyone read Ch 12.
2.  Everyone report in one paragraph on who in America is at risk for becoming unemployed, and why.

In-class Learning Objectives:

Ø       Discover how Adam Smith determined that resources could be used to accomplish the greatest good.

Ø       Watch and discuss 7 minute clips about globalization effects:
        - in computers;
        - in airplanes; and
        - in agriculture.

Ø       Education that leads to employment of human resources is conducted differently in the United States, Germany, and Japan.
Assign your self to one of three groups and watch a video on this topic.  After the video,
-  Group A will argue that the American educational system is the best model to follow and explain why;
- Group B will argue that the German educational system is the best model to follow and explain why;
- Group C will argue that the Japanese educational system is the best model to follow and explain why.
 

Tom

14

Presentation practice, Essay reviews

15

GROUP PRESENTATIONS

16