TEACHING SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY THROUGH ACTIVE LEARNING: THE IRRIGATION EXERCISE.

The article focuses on learning theory in sociology. For students, theory is often one of the most daunting aspects of sociology--it seems abstract, removed from the concrete events of their everyday lives, and therefore intimidating. Because they are unable to immediately see the relevance of theory to their own individual life experiences, they avoid reading it, working with it, or learning about it. Students resist grappling with theory and often post- pone taking theory courses until they become unavoidable. In an attempt to break down student resistance to theory, instructors are increasingly turning to active learning approaches. According to social scientists, active learning is the process of talking about, writing about, and applying what is being learned to students' daily lives. Promoting active learning involves student-faculty and student-student contact, immediate feedback about how classroom material is relevant to students' understandings about the world, and experiences that keep students on task and communicate high expectations while also allowing them to be engaged with class material in a variety of ways.