ASA logo
TRAILS Featured Resources
TRAILS Featured Resources
February 23, 2023

TRAILS, the Teaching Resources and Innovation Library for Sociology, provides a way for you to easily locate peer-reviewed teaching materials, showcase your teaching ideas, develop professionally, and join a community of scholarly teachers. You will find great assignments, syllabi, lectures, and other teaching ideas at TRAILS. Please also consider submitting your great ideas for teaching. The Featured Resources include some of the newest additions to our collection.

-Stephanie Medley-Rath
TRAILS Lead Editor

TRAILS logo with gold star superimposed on the lower right corner. Logo is composed of four vertical bars in varying shades of blue.
Jenna Ann Lamphere
Best Practices: From Research Problem to Survey Administration
February 6, 2018
Subject Area(s):
Research Methods
Resource Type(s):
Assignment
Class Level(s):
College 300
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
With this assignment, students practice best practices in writing good survey questions, designing an attractive web-based questionnaire, and administering the survey. Students write survey questions for a pre-defined research problem, design an attractive...
Cover Page Requires Subscription DOCX
Matthew Ward
Sociological Theory Syllabus
January 12, 2018
Subject Area(s):
Theory
Resource Type(s):
Syllabus
Class Level(s):
College 400
Class Size(s):
Small
Abstract:
This course teaches students about key theoretical traditions within sociology, as well as the philosophies of social science underlying these perspectives, including Positivism and Interpretivism. The course relies on a variety of primary and secondary texts,...
Cover Page Requires Subscription DOC
Jamie Oslawski-Lopez, Amanda Miller
Integrating a Collaborative Survey Research Project
December 28, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Research Methods
Resource Type(s):
Assignment, Class Activity
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
This activity integrates undergraduate and graduate Sociology students enrolled in different research methods courses through a semester-long, collaborative research project surveying a campus event. Although collaborative projects are not the norm in most American...
Cover Page Requires Subscription XLSX Requires Subscription PPTX Requires Subscription PDF
Reginald A Byron
Teaching About Police Violence with Open Source Police Shootings Data and Census Data
December 28, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Criminology/Delinquency
Resource Type(s):
Assignment
Class Level(s):
College 200
Class Size(s):
Medium
Abstract:
Given a larger push for developing quantitative literacy among undergraduates, the field of sociology has recently advocated that professors integrate data analysis and mathematical skills into their substantive courses (Howry and Rodriguez 2006; Wilder 2009). This...
Cover Page Requires Subscription PDF
Amanda Jayne Miller
Fake News: Media Representations of "Truth"
December 14, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Communication and Information Technologies
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Medium
Abstract:
Since the 2016 election, calls of "fake news" have been abundant. At times, this literally does refer to fabricated stories. However, "fake news" might also refer to stories in which some relevant information is omitted or highlighted in order to give the story a...
Cover Page Requires Subscription PDF
Samuel Aaron Torres
Fake News or Genuine Article? Evaluating News Media Claims Using Bivariate Analyses in SPSS
December 4, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Statistics
Resource Type(s):
Assignment, Class Activity
Class Level(s):
College 400
Class Size(s):
Medium
Abstract:
Although learning objectives for social statistics courses typically include informed consumption of everyday statistical claims, students are rarely provided explicit opportunities to practice this skill. This is unfortunate because the journalistic accounts to...
Cover Page Requires Subscription DOCX Requires Subscription DOCX Requires Subscription DOCX Requires Subscription DOCX
Brandon Bosch
Literature Review Group Activity
November 11, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Capstone Courses
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
College 400
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
I use this literature review activity for two capstone classes (Sociology and Political Science) where students must write a 15-20 research paper. The presentation and group activity below helps students better understand how to write an effective literature review...
Cover Page Requires Subscription DOCX Requires Subscription PPTX
Colleen Elizabeth Wynn
Conceptualization, Operationalization, and Measurement
October 16, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Research Methods
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
College 200
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
This simple set of in-class activities allow students to practice conceptualizing, operationalizing, and measuring common sociological variables. I use this combination of three activities, usually across two class periods, to let students practice conceptualization...
Cover Page Requires Subscription DOCX
Kevin D Dougherty, Jake Kane, Renae Wilkinson
Campus Tattoos Project
October 16, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Visual Sociology
Resource Type(s):
Assignment
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
In the United States, there is a growing acceptance and embrace of tattoos, especially among younger generations. Tattoos hold powerful messages of identity and belonging ripe for sociological exploration. The Campus Tattoos Project (CTP) is an innovative,...
Cover Page Requires Subscription DOCX
Amanda Jayne Miller, Sharon Sassler
Reasons for Cohabitation Mini Qualitative Analysis
September 21, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Family
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
Active learning is an important part of the educational process. For skills like research methods, students learn are more likely to success in class when they are able to practice a skill in a supervised way (Freeman et al., 2014). Such exercises also tend to...
Cover Page Requires Subscription DOCX Requires Subscription PPTX Requires Subscription DOCX Requires Subscription DOCX

Our website uses cookies to improve your browsing experience, to increase the speed and security for the site, to provide analytics about our site and visitors, and for marketing. By proceeding to the site, you are expressing your consent to the use of cookies. To find out more about how we use cookies, see our Privacy Policy .