Teaching Anthropology

‘Covid-19 and Me’. A Serendipitous Teaching and Learning Opportunity in a 1st Year Undergraduate Medical Anthropology Course

Thu, 20 May 2021 01:05:17 -0700

‘Covid-19 and Me’ was an affective learning blog post exercise assigned to 1^st year undergraduate students taking a medical anthropology module at the start of academic year 2020-21. We describe the way in which a collective analysis of the accounts was undertaken and how these were presented and discussed in a set of online and face-to-face seminars. We discuss whether Covid-19 was indeed a ‘portal’ in Arundhati Roy’s use of the term, arguing that it was the written reflection and collective anthropological analysis of their accounts, rather than the virus itself, that enabled students to ‘imagine the world anew’.

Plagiarism, rote memorizing and other "bad" habits in the Greek University and beyond.

Alexandra Bakalaki — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 01:30:42 -0800

Drawing on my experience as professor of Anthropology in Greece, this paper focuses on student practices like rote learning and plagiarism academics commonly consider inimical to meaningful learning, intellectual empowerment and the cultivation of critical independent thinking. In this paper I refrain from viewing such practices from the standard academic perspective according to which they must be eradicated, and try to appreciate them from the perspective of the students who engage in them. I suggest that they serve as means through which students navigate in and cope with the university environment, but they also provide a point of view from which the university appears as a setting within which the “bad habits” academics so despise are sensible and helpful.

‘Ultimate Introvert’ to the ‘Touchy-Chummy’: Using Simulations to Teach Interviewing Skills

Timi Lynne Barone, Samantha K Ammons — Mon, 25 Jan 2021 01:14:21 -0800

In-depth interviews represent one of the most commons forms of qualitative data used in social science research, especially in ethnography. Yet preparing students to conduct good in-depth interviews is an area of relative neglect in social science literature, despite the potential marketability of this skill for anthropology and sociology students. Practice in communities may be impractical and/or problematic because of wariness due to historical legacies, as well as current political and economic uncertainty. However, relying on peer-interactions for “mock” interviews is problematic because of students’ collective inexperience. Without sufficient preparation, mistakes can be costly for all. In this paper, we advocate for the use of a simulated interview participant (SIP) to better prepare students as interviewers. We provide 12 SIPs and guidance for implementing them in classrooms. Through SIPs, instructors or other actors expose students to common interviewer pitfalls and better prepare them for research in diverse communities.

Undergraduate Student Led Research: An Applied Anthropology Course as a Community-Based Research Firm

Jason Miller — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0800

Increasingly, undergraduate students desire hands-on learning experiences to prepare them for life after graduation. Research experience at the undergraduate level unlocks a key skill set students need and desire in terms of its anthropological value and also the value of transferable, critical thinking skills. This article explores the creation and continued development of my Applied Anthropology course which relies heavily on community-engaged research and community-engaged pedagogy. The course is structured as if participants are an independent, community-based research “firm” that has been contracted by a local community agency to undertake research on their behalf. Students manage every aspect of the project including developing data collection tools, seeking Institutional Review Board ethics approval, collecting and analyzing data, and ultimately preparing a technical report, policy recommendations, and presentation for the client. In addition, I will discuss the benefits to both students and community partners (including practical research experience and, in some cases, already implemented policy suggestions) as well as some of the challenges to this approach including time, capacity, and commitment. I conclude by reflecting on my role as mentor during this process and provide suggestions for those who would like to create a similar research experience for their own students.