Film, radio, and news cultivated for a popular audience is a great way to help students see connections between “real world concerns” with academic questions.  On this page, I categorize and list links to publicly available media that can help teachers teach social and ecological consequences of a globalizing agrofood system. Food RadioLab on “Cornstalks Everywhere But Nothing … More Using the Global Agrofood system to teach globalization, social justice, and economic sociology

A key component of successful higher education is developing reading and communication skills.  Reading at a college level–and quantity–is hardly natural.  Many students benefit from explicit instruction on how to quickly “read” and comprehend texts.  Below are two summaries that I’ve used in courses to teach reading skills: (In a reading-intensive ecology class): How to … More Teaching tools: How to read (for class)

This semester, I am TAing a course on the history of agriculture.  I am excited to develop my skills in teaching high-level concepts and historical facts in an active, inter-active, multimedia way.  I ran across this list of active teaching ideas from Cal State today.  Here are a few that I plan to try in the next … More Active classroom teaching