Welcome to SeminariumPosted on July 23, 2013 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorWell-known-as-excellent Instructor 1: “Some of us were talking at lunch about how our efforts in course design, and in the scholarship of teaching & learning, fit in as part of our professional development here at Local Seminary.”Well-known-as-excellent Instructor 2: “I really want to hear more as you work that out, because–in all sincerity–it would never have occurred to me in a hundred years that someone would ‘design’ a course.”It’s in the spirit of this exchange that we welcome you to Seminarium: The Elements of Great Teaching, a group blog and resource site dedicated to pedagogy for religious studies in higher education.We invite you to join with us here as we “bootstrap each other up” on our understandings and practices in the craft of education.
Archive as a Context for Teaching the BiblePosted on July 23, 2013 by Gregory CuéllarAxiomatic in my teaching of the Bible is the notion that all texts are produced in a context.For most of my beginning students, such a notion poses little threat to their faith convictions. Even the “more controversial” claim of non-Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch wanes in intensity after a few lectures on redaction history.Their uneasiness, however, lingers not with arguments on a text’s particular historical context but with the claim that all readings of the biblical text are the outcome of historical processes. Said differently, no reading, informed or uninformed, takes place in a social vacuum.
Counteracting Global Ignorance with Synchronous Online LearningPosted on July 23, 2013 by Nathan LoewenBringing web-based technology into the world religions classroom is often destructive. It’s wrong because the web technologies easily foster the worst kinds of tendencies that erode what is good about general education. The adoption of the web into religious studies teaching must adapt the technology towards properly-considered competencies for general education. I will propose and justify one means of doing just that.
ACE Series Part I: Your Students Can ACE Critical WritingPosted on July 23, 2013 by Richard NewtonYep, we asked for it. The classroom has never been more diverse. Students are coming from both sides of the poverty line, from all walks of life, and from everywhere on the map. Slowly but surely our ivory tower’s doors are widening to more of the world. And we professors have the opportunity of a lifetime. We get to guide students on the path to informed global citizenship, the dream of a university education.But that also means we can no longer pass the buck. You know what I’m talking about, and you’ve seen what I’ve seen.
Reimagining Nimble Ways of Preparing Persons for Church Leadership—2 of 2Posted on July 23, 2013 by Robin SteinkeLet’s clarify the challeges for preparing persons for Church leadership:The world needs the church to be better at being the church.Global crises are erupting around issues of poverty, environmental degradation, economic injustice, alienation of persons, refugees and immigration challenges, human trafficking and violence, to name just a few urgent issues. The list is long and complex. The world needs the church to be better at being the church in ways that bear witness to God’s promise for the flourishing of the world.