Strategies in Teaching Anthropology (2nd Edition) - Softcover

Rice, Patricia C.; McCurdy, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130340707 ISBN 13: 9780130340702

Publisher: Pearson College Div, 2001

Synopsis

The first of its kind to focus on the “how” of teaching anthropology across all of its sub-fields (Cultural-Social, Biological, Archaeology, and Linguistics), this unique reference tool features over 30 hands-on, experiential strategies and teaching “tricks of the trade” from some of today's most seasoned anthropology instructors. Provides a wide array of associated learning outcomes, team work strategies, and activities that have proven successful in the classroom, and shows how to clearly explain anthropological perspectives that contradict everyday experience and establish social categories, such as the social construction of race. Part I: General contains articles of tried-and-true strategies that are particularly appropriate for students' first exposure to anthropology and college classrooms in general; Part II: Biological Anthropology and Archaeology contains teaching tips to help students understand the complex issues through activities and props very familiar to them—e.g., “'First Steps' in Hominid Evolution: A Lesson on Walking” encourages development of critical thinking skills around the deceptively simple art of walking, which actually turns out to be an extremely complex phenomenon; Part III: Cultural Anthropology contains strategies that involve a series of activities that challenge the familiar and reveal that which is masked or often covert—e.g., explores gender differences in a very visual way by using children's television commercials to analyze gender enculturation. Devotes four articles to ethnography teaching strategies. For anthropology instructors.

About this title

About the Author:

Patricia Rice has taught anthropology for 40 years at West Virginia University where she is an Eberly Distinguished Professor. She has received numerous teaching awards: the American Anthropological Association/Oxford award for Undergraduate Teaching (1998), several West Virginia University Foundation teaching awards, and the Case/Carnegie Professor of the Year for the state of West Virginia (1991). Professor Rice was educated at Ohio State University and the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and her early field work and publications focused on various aspects of prehistoric art. She currently has several text books with Pearson and has co-edited the six volumes of Strategies in Teaching Anthropology with Pearson. With the other two coeditors of this series, she has conducted Teaching Workshops for the AAA since 2000. She co-edited The Teaching of Anthropology: Problems, Issues, and Decisions (Mayfield 1997) that was based on the American Anthropological Association's Task Force on teaching, co-edited The Joys of Teaching Anthropology (2007) for McGraw Hill, and co-edits the journal General Anthropology. David McCurdy has been teaching Anthropology at Macalester College since 1966. He has been chair of the department for extended periods since 1969. Professor McCurdy has received numerous teaching awards. He was the first recipient of the American Anthropological Association / Mayfield Award for Undergraduate Teaching (1997). He was also the recipient of the Macalester Distinguished Teaching Award (1995). Indeed he was made the subject of an article in 1977 by Change Magazine for innovative teaching in anthropology, Change, Special Report on Innovative Teaching, No. 6, 1977. Professor McCurdy completed his undergraduate work at Cornell University and received his B.A. in 1957. He finished his Masters in Anthropology from Stanford University in 1959. In 1964, he completed his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Cornell Univeristy. Currently Professor McCurdy's interests in anthropology include ethnographic research, cognitive anthropology, applied anthropology as well as comparative religion in the United States & South Asia. His research to date consists of a major ethnography (1961-1963), then restudy (1985, 1991, 1994) of a Bhil tribal community in Rajasthan, India. He has also conducted a cross-cultural study of spirit possession (1966-1967). His ethnographic studies has encompassed corporate managers (1983), stockbrokers (1980), Jehovah witnesses (1973), as well as members of an environment movement (1968-1969). He has also performed continued ethnography (1988-1999) on a national motocycle association.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Four years ago, Strategies in Teaching Anthropology was only a glimmer in our eyes. The AAA had finished its four year task force on teaching anthropology, and in 1997, a volume of pedagogy, the first in 35 years, titled The Teaching of Anthropology: Problems, Issues, and Decisions (edited by C. Quota. J. White, R. Furrow, and P. Rice), was published by Mayfield Publishing Company. But the 1997 volume was "delinquent" in one area due to lack of space, and that was an absence of any articles of a "how to do it" nature. Members of the General Anthropology Division of the AAA and its permanent teaching committee COTA (Committee On Teaching Anthropology) mounted a Call For Papers in hopes of filling that void. We were extremely happy when Nancy Robbers, publisher at Prentice-Hall, agreed to publish the volume in 2000.

In this second edition, we are pleased to present 30 new strategies for teaching our discipline. Like the strategies in the first edition, some are "quick fix tricks" for a one-class session (or less), some take a week or so, and some continue through a term, though on an occasional basis. It is not our intent to present course outlines or syllabi, but rather strategies to use in teaching introductory-level courses. Some of the principles used in these strategies can be used in upper division courses (for example, in fieldwork courses or those doing role playing), but all are suitable, and indeed "invented" for use in introductory level courses where students normally get their first taste of anthropology. Some 10 of the strategies in this second edition were published in the first edition, but because of their general applicability and timeliness, they are republished here.

We have had many positive unsolicited comments about the first edition, with people telling us they have used many of the strategies and thanking us for putting the volume together because the strategies "worked." One of us (PCR) mentored Danelle Marable, a first-time instructor in a summer Introduction to Anthropology course for 50 students when the book was only in manuscript form and loaned it to her. She used 10 of the strategies, reporting on a weekly basis how well they all worked. She particularly liked her first day in class when she sat in the back, looking and acting "just like them." While doing all 40 strategies in a single class might prove to be a bit too unorganized for most students, in the case of instructor Marable choosing 10 of the strategies, her class evaluated her as an excellent instructor in her first time teaching role.

The articles in the second edition are organized by anthropological subfield, and pages vii through xiii give a quick look at each article by topic, (expected) learning outcomes, and student activity. The Contributor's list also contains email listings for the authors. Some authors have written in their articles that they would be happy to supply further information. Feel free to get in touch with authors directly about any questions you might have. We are again happy to have both Conrad Quota and Yolanda Moses contribute to the volume, and thank Nancy Robbers and Sharon Chambliss at Prentice-Hall for not only seeing virtue in publishing a book that can only improve the teaching of anthropology, but for making our jobs seamless.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pearson College Div
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0130340707
• ISBN 13: 9780130340702
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 185