Teaching Sociology in Health: Blends of disciplines, study mode, location and student background

Title

Teaching Sociology in Health: Blends of disciplines, study mode, location and student background

Author(s)

Dr Emily Hansen, Mr Brendan Churchill

Presentation Goals

• Be familiar with effective approaches to teaching sociology to first year nursing and health students.
• Identify key challenges associated with cross disciplinary teaching, and the broader issue of teaching sociology to applied health disciplines.
• Reflect on opportunities for future teaching and curriculum development related to the cross disciplinary teaching of sociology.

Subtheme

Course Blends

Presentation Type

Spotlight on Practice

Keywords

team teaching, embedded curriculum, sociology, inter-disciplinary, blended delivery, online, on campus

Room

Social Sciences 211

Time

14.05-15.05

Abstract

This presentation will present a critical analysis of our teaching practice when teaching sociology to Faculty of Health students. The authors coordinate and deliver HGA 138 Society, Culture and Health in Hobart. This is a compulsory unit for first year students enrolled in nursing and health and (prior to 2015) an optional unit for first year paramedic studies students. It is a service unit delivered by the sociology program in the School of Social Science to Faculty of Health students across four campuses (Hobart, Launceston, Rozelle and Darlinghurst). We employ a team teaching model with blended learning techniques.

Sociology has been taught in university based nursing programs in Australia since the 1980s, and despite widespread recognition of the value of sociology to nursing students there is ongoing debate about how sociology can be best integrated into courses.  The new nursing curriculum that begins in 2016 does not include HGA 138, instead sociological content will be embedded across several different units, some of which will utilise service teaching from sociologists. A redesigned HGA 138 will be offered to first year sociology students and continue to be taught into the Bachelor of Health as a service unit.

Our hope is that the reflections we share in this presentation will enrich and inform future teaching and curriculum development in this area while preventing the loss of valuable insights gained through five years of teaching sociology to nursing students and at times health and paramedic students as well. Our critical analysis of practice will reflect on the conference themes of blended learning, student blends and course blends in relation to the challenges and opportunities we have identified associated with teaching sociology in this inter-disciplinary and applied context.