This table is a version of a revised proforma we have developed for the toolkit specification document (the full version for our developer is also in the wiki). We would like to work with you on ‘mapping’ out the ‘exemplary module’, focusing on description and core content. Below you will find our attempt at mapping out one of Pam’s modules, “Sociology of health and illness” – not every element has been completed, but hopefully it gives you an idea of how this ‘mapping’ framework might extract information from your module handbook and weekly materials (depending on your format, this might not apply equally in all cases). These columns will broadly translate into the online version of this tool.
We would welcome your contribution in working through this map with your chosen module (the same module as the basis for the case study). Again it is a work in progress and we see this as a draft version with some further iteration, particularly around pedagogic vocab.As you work thought this we would welcome any comments; is the proposed structure easy to use? Is it going to be useful for you in describing your module(s) to make them easier to share? Please use the space below to add your comments, suggestions. For example, is it useful to separate learning outcomes from relation to subject benchmarks?
Element / Field menu content / Sample content
General description
a. Module title / Free text / Sociology of Leisure
b. Description / Free text / This module considers topics that are of relevance to both Leisure Studies and Sociology: bodies,moral panics, risk, enterprise and stratification
c. Credit weighting / 10/15/20/25/30 / 30 points
d. Level / F4/F5/F6/F7
e. Relationship to programme course / Mandatory, elective / Elective
f. Name of syllabus or programme / Combined honours degree
g. Offered within joint or combined programme? / Yes, no / Yes
h. Mapping to JACS code / Free text - or a controlled list of options of JACS codes
i. Mapping to subject benchmarks / Free text - or options from the subject benchmark statements / Knowledge and Understanding
Cognitive and intellectual skills
Professional Subject Specific skills
Transferable skills
j. Mapping to pedagogic vocab (to be advised) / Free text /
- .
k. Learning outcomes / Free text / At the end of the module students should be able to:
- Understand some basic sociological approaches and concepts
- Apply those concepts to discussions of leisure pursuits and practices
- Begin to grasp relationships between individual meanings and social patterns
- Begin to consider some implications for leisure policies and the role of the State
- reflect critically upon various theoretical approaches to the study of leisure
- be able to evaluate different sociological arguments and evidence and apply them to popular understandings
- begin to grasp relations between theoretical models and more concrete applications
- ability to read and understand texts ion leisure studies and in sociology
- ability to apply relevant concepts to other areas of study
- gathering, organisation and deployment of information and evidence
- communicating ideas in a coherent and sensible form
- developing fluent and effective analytical writing skills
l. Assessment type / TBC / Assessment is via coursework (100%). Students will choose two topics from the menu and offer individual presentations on them
m. Delivery / Weekly lecture / seminar [etc - revise] blended / online / face to face / Electronic documents (‘RLO’s), to be studied over two weeks, day conferences
Structure and core content
n. Module core materials description, repeated for each material i.e. weekly lecture / handout / activity. Each element will contain the main resource or material, with further optional rows beneath to show other components of the resource which could be disaggregated. This should help give an extra granular level of description within the module materials.
So in this example, the description of the weekly materials and the further resources (such as reading lists) are drawn from the module handbook. For each exemplar module you may have to add further rows below each weekly item (for example, if you use structured assessment as part of each material).
Again, please see this now as a first iteration of the mapping process – it may difficult to apply with any consistency across our materials (they do not all follow this format), so your initial feedback on this process will be very valuable in developing this mapping framework and the version for the toolkit website.
When this mapping framework is presented in the toolkit, the links to the materials can be directed into JORUM as a persistent link (i.e. directly to the material). This can be added at a later stage.
File types TBC / CContent
n.1 / ppt /.doc / .pdf / .html / audio / video / other
.doc / Introduction
This week gives a brief overview of the module and talks through some of the key concepts and definitions which will be looked at during the weeks ahead.
n. 1.a / Reading list / assessment / feedback / reflection
Reading list / To be decided
n.2 / other
Xerte RLO / Bodies in modern society. (2 weeks work)
The RLO explains how sociological theory has recently focused on the importance of bodies as outward signs of social processes. An additional sociological themes turns on stigmatisation and how people manage social life with ‘unusual’ bodies. The Leisure Studies material goes on to summarise some ‘applied’ work on topics such as stigmatised bodies or modified bodies ( including tattooed or pierced bodies and cosmetic surgery). The RLO ends with a discussion of obese bodies.
n. 2.a / Reading list / assessment / feedback / reflection
Reading list / Reading lists Included in RLO
n.3 / other
Xerte RLO / Moral panics.( 2 weeks work)Understanding how ‘social opinion’ is mobilised in the media to generate moral campaigns. The concept is associated with some central sociological work on ‘societal reaction’ approaches to understanding deviancy, and with some pioneering work to develop Marxist understandings of the role of the media. In Leisure Studies, the concept has been applied to understand reactions to some spectacular youth cultures, ranging from mods and rockers in the 1960s to rave in the 1990s, and, as the previous work implies, to various health and fitness campaigns as well
n. 3.a / Reading list / assessment / feedback / reflection
Reading list / Reading lists Included in RLO
n.4 / other
Xerte RLO / Risk.( 2 weeks work) Debating the pioneering work on ‘risk society’ by Giddens, Douglas and Beck. Leisure Studies work tends to offer more detailed understandings of the pleasures of risky activities like extreme sports, and there are some insights in to aspects of risk denial or risk management which could have wider sociological implications.
n. 4.a / Reading list / assessment / feedback / reflection
Reading list / Reading lists Included in RLO
n.5 / other
Xerte RLOs / A series of RLOs: (3 weeks work). A general introduction to leisure and enterprise then further discusses the emergence of commercialised leisure by examining approaches which include Ritzer on Macdonaldisation and disenchantment, Du Gay et al on Sony, and Goldman and Papson on Nike. Discussing these topics take us into sociological territory more generally with discussions of enterprise social and industrial change (including Fordism and globalisation), into studies of consumerism, and into important ways in which viewers are addressed in modern advertising.
n. 5.a / Reading list / assessment / feedback / reflection
Reading list / Reading lists Included in RLO
l.6 / other
Xerte RLOs / Leisure and social stratification.(3 weeks work) This section begins with an RLO on work and leisure. The remaining two quite large RLOs, are divided slightly more by specialism. The classically sociological ones examine social mobility, and introduce the main theoretical and empirical approaches. The ones focused on leisure include work showing how leisure activities both reflect and reproduce social divisions of class, gender, age and ethnicity, culminating in a summary of the recent large study by Bennett et al. (see RLO).
n. 6.a / Reading list / assessment / feedback / reflection
Reading list / Reading lists Included in RLO
m. Any other disaggregated resources to include as separate elements?) / Day Conferences –students select topics from the RLOs and prepare presentations. Staff provide additional lectures and tutorials.
‘Reading guides’ (short critical reviews of major work) and other elements are connected to the RLOs
Space for your comments, suggestions
This module is a variant of a ‘blended learning’ approach. The electronic documents (RLOs) are produced using Xerte software, but do not follow the conventional definition of an RLO in that they are not confining a topic to a discrete skill or element. On the contrary, care has been taken to offer considerable ‘depth’ to the material via hyperlinks to other electronic teaching material (often ‘reading guides’ to the literature as well as conventional web-based material). Further, distinct RLOs are sometimes linked together. The intention is both to offer a manageable learning sequence as students work through each page of the RLO, and can complete them in a reasonable time, but then to suggest further depth as students link to materials elsewhere. This produces a deliberate ‘excess’ of material so that students can choose options to pursue, seen best, perhaps in the rather large RLO on social mobility. Since the additional materials often offer links themselves to other materials, an element of ‘syllabus independence’ is also possible.
Xerte offers the possibility of producing multimedia texts, and some of ours include images, video or sound. We have researched and experimented with multimedia materials, and the most practical outcome has been to help us clarify what images, sound or video actually do that text does not (we avoided the usual attempts to echo text in narration or video). One example is in the RLO on bodies where we present challenging images in order to encourage readers to notice their own reactions to unusual bodies adn thus to externalise and discuss them. We are aware that there is a case for using different media to replicate each other in the interests of increasing accessibility ( using Xerte’s screen reader device to provide sound for those who have difficulty reading, for example), but we have not made these particular examples fully accessible.
Further, the online variants of interactivity, provided in the Xerte templates as quizzes, tests, invitations to sort material and so on, are used sparingly and are not intended to exhaust or close the interactive possibilities. Instead, the other element of the blended module focuses on interaction in the full conventional f2f sense, in seminars, presentations, activities and discussions at day conferences.
What makes this format particularly ‘reusable’ is that individual RLOs can be detached and examined separately. The one on leisure and enterprises might be examined as a particular example on a business studies module, or the one on risk seen as an example of a distinctively sociological approach to what looks like individual activities in an introductory social sciences module, or the one on bodies used in a health and fitness module in sports studies. At the same time, the hyperlinks joining some of these individual RLOs can be followed to produce larger aggregates. Reusability also depends on the nature of the topics chosen, however, and this module has chosen those that do span several other specialisms and interests.
Finally, using Xerte templates, and saving the RLOs as templates enables further reusability in that other users can download and edit pages, or add other material including additional hyperlinks, video, sound narration, images and so on. Users experiencing accessibility problems can operate Xerte functions like screen reader.