Lynette Hoelter

Hometown & State: Parma, Ohio

Education:

Teaching Experience:
What types of courses & students have you taught? What do you enjoy about teaching?

I have taught substantive courses such as Intro Sociology, Intro Social Psychology, and Sex and Gender as well as methodology courses like Research Methods, Statistics, and a graduate course in Survey Research Techniques.

I enjoy the "aha" moments that occur when teaching – I love it when students come back and say that I've "ruined" things for them because they can't look at social situations in the same ways. I truly enjoy engaging students in active learning exercises and I take pleasure in interacting with and learning from students along the way!

Career/Research/Other Interests:
What do you want to do when you grow up? What professional or personal/social things do you enjoy?

I am a family sociologist so I'd like to continue to combine my love of teaching with research on relationship dynamics. I am also fascinated by research methodology and occasionally dream of completing a degree in survey methodology or being involved with a project that uses innovative combinations of methods.

Outside of work, my biggest hobby is music – currently it's ringing handbells.

Interest in the OLC:
What intrigued you about working on the OLC? Why have you signed up to develop DDLGs?

I was drawn to sociology by a professor who used real data in her Intro class and I have since realized how unique that experience was. It is invigorating for me to work with other faculty to create a product that will allow other students to be drawn to the social sciences for similar reasons!

Explaining DDLGs:
If you were explaining DDLGs to a friend or colleague, how would you describe them? What would you say their role is/could be for instructors and their courses? What are their benefits? How would you explain what you're developing?

DDLGs are a fast, easy way to bring real data into a classroom. Whether instructors go directly to the site and use selected tables to highlight points made in lecture or students work through guides for homework, the use of interesting data to examine a course concept in more depth makes learning all that much more meaningful. The American Sociological Association and others have also issued a challenge to raise the bar on quantitative literacy skills for students and DDLGs are a response to that challenge.

Learning/Experience from DDLG Development:
Was there anything you learned or anything that surprised you during development of content for the DDLGs (perhaps related to teaching, the OLC, ICPSR, etc.)? Do you have plans to use DDLGs in courses you may teach in the future? Has the experience been a rewarding one – if so, in what way?

Working on DDLGs has been a great learning experience – it's a fun way to gain exposure to many datasets I probably would not have explored otherwise. In fact, I have found several datasets that I would love to use for my own research sometime in the future. As someone who often has trouble coming up with research ideas, I've been surprised at how easily the sense of discovery and excitement arise when examining data for possible use in Guides!