During finals week class time, SOC 212 (Gender and Society) students create a public service announcement. The instructions given are "Based on the information you learned on gender and society, what would you focus on to promote social change? You are going to create a two minute Public Service Announcement to share with the class." The goal of this assessment is to see which topic is chosen as most important to create a public service announcement. Students were required to choose one topic; some chose more than one to discuss. The following are the percentages of students who mentioned each topic in their public service annoucment: (1) feminist movement 37% (2) LGBTQ rights 19% (3) gender and economic justice 19% (4) gender socialization of children 18% (5) violence against women 11% (6) gender and politics 11% (7) reproductive rights 8% (8) gender and media 6% (9) gender and language 4% (10) masculinity 3% . 100%(N=90) of the students focused on social activism and gave an example of how to make the social change happen. My next step in this activity is to ask why they chose the specific topic.
Comments
I really like how this focuses on students expressing initiative--what would they do and how does the information they learned changed how they think or motivate them to create change. This gives me ideas for how to address this in my English classes.
HI Stace, Thanks so much for the feedback. I really appreciate it! I am looking forward to seeing their ideas on change.
I love this activity! I would be interested to know if demographics (age, race, gender, religious affiliation, sexual orientation) have any correlation to predicting what students may select as a topic for a public service announcement.
That is a great idea-to connect dempographics to the topic chosen. I will do that/ Thanks for the idea! I appreciate it.
I really like this activity but would be curious on how you are going evaluate the success of the activity.
HI Teri,
I hope to use the communication assessment provided by SAAC in addition to my rubric for Sociology assignments. Thanks for the comment!
I love the idea of PSAs. I may just incorporate this into my Intercultural Communication online course! Thanks! Ro
Thanks so much! I will let you know how it goes this semester. I hope the structure I created from a few years ago is an improvement.
Olga, what I like most about this is that you are giving them a real life task - aka authentic assessment - to demonstrate their learning. When you ask them why they chose the topic, what will you do with information?
HI Ro, That is a great question. I ask that question for the following reasons:
1. To have the student think about the topic instead of just picking a topic to get the work done. I hope that they pick something that does interest them.
2. I am curious to see if it is connected to a career goal or personal experience.
I have not thought about analyzing the information. Perhaps that is another CATS! Thanks, Olga