Teaching Research Methods Through Popular Culture: Start Thread #POPC1 #AcademicChatter
Hello! My name is Julia Largent and I’m an Asst. Professor of Communication at @Mac_College in McPherson, Kan. (SLAC, about 750 students). This is my third year at MC where I teach the journalism & media sides of communication as well as advise the student media. #POPC1 
@Mac_College My research focuses on #fanstudies & documentaries—both separately & where they collide. When I started at MC they (excitedly) asked me to create an intro to popular culture course to be offered that spring. I very quickly agreed as I was excited to teach within my field. #POPC1
@Mac_College After looking at the course catalog, I realized there was also not an outright research methods class, either. So I decided to merge the two. What better way to learn methods than through pop culture?! #POPC1
@Mac_College As you can probably expect, this was maybe a good idea on paper. It was an even worse idea in practice. #POPC1
@Mac_College I wanted to inspire my students to enjoy researching popular culture the same way my professors had inspired me. I succeeded in this, I think, with a few students, but not the majority. The class didn’t go as well as planned for two main reasons. #POPC1
@Mac_College First, the class was a late add to the course options and at 8am TR. I had 18 students enrolled. However, only about five of those students *wanted* to take the class. The others were enrolled for the credits toward graduation. You can imagine the apathy in the room. #POPC1
@Mac_College Second, the course was trying to do too much in 15 weeks. Throw a snow day in there as well, and I was just speeding through the content. The only thing on which the students had any depth was the topic they chose for their research paper. #POPC1
@Mac_College As the semester progressed, I did what I could to save the class. I tried to connect the material with the students, but their apathy, and frequent absences, made it hard to plan anything. The class ended & looking back on it, it went okay. But I wanted it to be better. #POPC1
@Mac_College As I pushed forward to make the course a normal offering, I had to come up with a better way to offer this class. I liked the idea behind it: learning communication research methods through popular culture. But it was clear a survey class was not the way to go. #POPC1
@Mac_College At MC, we teach on a 2-year cycle. I teach public speaking almost every semester. It can get repetitive. To help relieve some of this, I decided to morph this class into a special topics class. #POPC1
@Mac_College I decided to kick off this new course with Harry Potter as the text. It’s been 20+ years since the first book came out and it’s clear the fandom still grows. I also love the series and so do many, many of my students. #POPC1
@Mac_College The only major for whom it is required is the Digital Media major (comm major + art/production courses). In the DM courses, we spend a lot of time teaching them *how* to create content, but not much discussion on how it might impact the audience. #POPC1
@Mac_College Comm majors are strongly encouraged to take it, though. When pitching the class, my chair & I also agreed to let students take it multiple times for credit. Using special topics allows for the course to be different each time, and the methods part can’t be heard enough. #POPC1
@Mac_College The difficulty of this class is finding the course text(s). I use Dunn & Young’s “Pursuing Popular Culture” for research methods. For the HP side, I will be using Alberti & Miller’s “Transforming Harry.” And, of course, the actual HP books. #POPC1
@Mac_College A few of the planned assignments are daily research or discussion questions based on the reading, a scholarly article presentation, in-class discussions, a semester-long research project/paper, and, of course, a game of quidditch on the mall. #POPC1
@Mac_College Not an assignment, but one thing I will continue is having fac/staff come in weekly to share something they are fans of & how it impacts/impacted their life. Students really enjoy the interactions and they are also introduced to texts and fac/staff they didn’t know. #POPC1
@Mac_College Since I have not taught it yet, I cannot speak to its success (or failure), but I believe it will go better than last time. There are currently 16 students enrolled; mostly non-communication or digital media majors. #POPC1
@Mac_College The class is not at 8am and was on the books since day one of course enrollment. Hopefully, this mitigates issue number one of the first offering. #POPC1
@Mac_College For a working copy of my syllabus for this coming spring see here: bit.ly/2WWQukd For a reader accessible version: bit.ly/2NSaWyO #POPC1
@Mac_College For a document of all of the tweets (minus the superfluous gifs, memes, and images), see here: bit.ly/2Qe1g4x See the Syllabus for course mission, rationale, description, and SLOs. #POPC1
@Mac_College Thank you for (virtually) attending my presentation! Questions?! [Teaching Research Methods Through Popular Culture: End Thread #POPC1]
