Skip to content Where Legends Are Made

Category: Course Profiles

“Bebop to Hip Hop: Young America and Music,” Sharony Green

Instructor: Sharony Green Course: Bebop to Hip Hop: Young America and Music (HY 300) “Bebop to Hip Hop” is a 300-level course that explores social developments, like the beatnik, Civil Rights, and counterculture periods, through the lens of postwar music. The course includes active and collaborative components and a new creative mixtape project, which is sure to be a hit. What are your course goals? I am very interested in students seeing how life is cyclical, even if there is often […]

Read More from “Bebop to Hip Hop: Young America and Music,” Sharony Green

Visual Thinking in Organic Chemistry

Dr. Bonizzoni's organic chemistry class

Instructor: Marco Bonizzoni Course: Organic Chemistry (CH 231 & 232) Audience: Undergraduates Organic chemistry is the study of the properties and behavior of chemicals containing carbon as the key element. These compounds are both the basis of all life on earth (we are all made of organic compounds) and a large focus of the chemical industry (e.g., pharmaceuticals, plastics, advanced materials, fuels). This course aims to show the relevance of scientific and chemical knowledge in everyday life and to advocate […]

Read More from Visual Thinking in Organic Chemistry

World Literature Class Awards Book Prize

Instructor: Emily Wittman Course: World Literature (EN 411) Audience: Undergraduates Making significant use of Web 2.0 technology, I run my English 411 course, a senior-level seminar in comparative & world literature, as a prize-granting panel, modeled loosely on the Nobel Prize committee. We read seven or eight critically acclaimed contemporary novels from across the globe, rank them according to criteria we come up with ourselves, and then vote collectively for a winner at the end of our course. What are […]

Read More from World Literature Class Awards Book Prize

“Anthropology of Sex” with Chris Lynn

Chris Lynn's anthropology class

Instructor: Chris Lynn Course: Anthropology of Sex (ANT 208) Audience: Undergraduates Anthropology of Sex is an introduction to anthropology via a course in human sexuality. I approach the class from a four-field anthropological perspective — which means I use sex as a means to explore archaeology, culture, biology, and linguistics — and use it as an opportunity to provide a service to the student community since there are only a few courses University-wide that focus expressly on sex and sexuality. What […]

Read More from “Anthropology of Sex” with Chris Lynn

Active Learning in Biology and Botany

Dr. Lopez-Bautista's botany lab

Instructor: Juan Lopez-Bautista Course: General Botany (BSC 360) & Biology of Algae (BSC 464) Audience: Undergraduates Focused on the study of plants, General Botany and Biology of Algae use active learning strategies to prepare students to recognize and resolve problems in the field of biology. The course features traditional lecture and lab components. What are your favorite teaching strategies in this class? I use a mix of traditional and non-traditional lecturing, lab exercises, hands-on experience with living materials, interactive exercises, readings, weekend field trips, […]

Read More from Active Learning in Biology and Botany

Film Course Studies Religion in Popular Culture

Instructor: Matthew Bagger Course: REL 360: Popular Culture/Cultural Humanities Audience: Undergraduates Offered each semester, this one-credit hour course requires students to attend four monthly films along with either the Day Lecture or the Aronov Lecture, and then to write a small number of brief commentaries on these events/issues, some of which appear on the department’s blog. The fall 2015 theme was “Selling Religion: Religion and Entrepreneurial Practice,” and students viewed Spirited Away, Elmer Gantry, Kumaré, and the video discussed in this year’s Day Lecture. […]

Read More from Film Course Studies Religion in Popular Culture

Teaching Grammar with Corpus Studies

Students in Dilin Liu's class

Instructor: Dilin Liu Course: Structure and Usage (EN 424/524) Audience: Undergraduate and graduate students Structure and Usage is an advanced course on English grammar and usages, mainly using contemporary linguistic approaches, such as cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics (i.e., the study of language using large-sized computer-searchable collections of language data), functional linguistics, and the lexicogrammar approach, which treats lexis and grammar as the two ends of one continuum rather than as two separate domains (the view held by traditional linguistic approaches). What are your […]

Read More from Teaching Grammar with Corpus Studies

“On the Road” with Jeff Melton

Jeff Melton

Instructor: Jeff Melton Course: On the Road (AMS 412) Audience: Undergraduates Part cultural history, part literature/film survey, “On the Road” examines the enduring narrative that emerges when Americans take to the open road behind the wheel of a car. Car culture is arguably the most definitive characteristic of late-20th century American social structure, and the cultural productions that emerge from it reveal the culture at large like no other component. What are your goals for this course?   My overall […]

Read More from “On the Road” with Jeff Melton

Hands-On Learning in Large Psychology Course

Instructor: Ansley Gilpin Course: Developmental Psychology (PY 352) Audience: Undergraduates Developmental Psychology is a large, 225-student course for upperclassmen. Some of the students are psychology majors, and others are fulfilling a requirement or an elective for another major (e.g., nursing and education). The course uses active and collaborative learning to help students understand and apply the key theories of human development. What are your favorite teaching strategies in this class? My favorite teaching strategies are ones that engage students. In such a large […]

Read More from Hands-On Learning in Large Psychology Course