University of Minnesota
Department of Sociology
soc@umn.edu
612-624-4300


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Home > Research & Centers : Teaching Resources Center

Teaching Resources Center

The Teaching Resources Center (TRC) consists of two main facets. One is a library of resources on teaching for use by our instructors and teaching assistants. The second is a forum in which we discuss a wide variety of teaching issues and work collaboratively on improving our teaching. Created in 1989, we are one of the few departments in the country with a teaching resources center.

This Department has a history of a strong commitment to high quality undergraduate and graduate teaching. This is evident in departmental activities and policies as well as in the teaching performance of our faculty members and graduate students.

The Library of Teaching Materials

The TRC library in room 715 contains syllabi collections, sample assignments, a video collection, a book collection including sociology texts used in undergraduate classes, and film catalogues with reviews. In addition, resources for graduate student professional development, such as sample grant proposals and vitas, are available in the library. An online database of the books and video collection is available for staff and students.

Additionally, we have an online Teaching Resources site, accessible only to department staff, graduate students, and faculty, which is sort of like a Onestop for teaching sociology at the U of M. It currently features class and lab activities, guides to using technology in teaching, and links to useful teaching and sociology websites. The Teaching Resources site is a collaborative project that is constantly growing as department members contribute new materials.

A Forum on Teaching

The TRC arranges for guest speakers and workshops on topics helpful to teaching sociology. Visiting lecturers as well as job candidates are always invited to give teaching as well as research talks when they visit our department. We have had lively discussions of teaching issues in past years with Michael Burawoy (U. C. Berkeley), David Newman (DePaul University), Rob Sampson (U. of Chicago), Susan Silbey (MIT), and Aldon Morris (Northwestern), among many others.

Other Teaching Activities

A climate of teaching excellence is promoted in other ways. Gifted teaching within the department has been recognized every year by presenting both faculty and graduate student with awards for teaching excellence. These awards are given each Spring at the annual Sociological Research Institute (SRI).

A large number of our faculty have won awards from the College or University for outstanding teaching. For instance, Ron Aminzade received the University's 2001 Graduate-Professional Teaching Award.

Many of our faculty and graduate students have taken advantage of the programs and workshops offered by the Center for Teaching and Learning and by the Bush Program for Excellence and Diversity in Teaching. This is reflected in our student evaluations and in continuing strong enrollments in our courses.

The Sociology Department offers a graduate seminar that introduces students to innovative teaching methods and allows them to critically reflect on a variety of issues in higher education that they are likely to confront in their future careers. Students in this seminar, "Sociology of Higher Education: Theory and Practice," are required to research and write a project useful to others in their teaching. Some of the titles of projects written include:

  • "Using Case Studies for Teaching Sociology"
  • "Sociology Movies"
  • "Cooperative and Active Learning Handbook"
  • "Law, Criminology, and Deviance Videos: Controversial Statement Discussions"
  • "Application of Music in Sociology Classes"
  • "Community Service Learning"
  • "Using Newsgroups in Conjunction with Course Instruction
  • "Finding Statistics and Data Resources via the World Wide Web"

We are excited about our teaching mission and proud of our faculty and graduate student accomplishments.