Envy—holy and otherwise—and Interfaith DialoguePosted on October 15, 2014 by Kristin Johnston LargenIn case you didn’t know, “envy” is one of the seven deadly sins—a categorization that has been around in the Christian church for millennia, and also gets lots of play in popular culture. [Did you see the movie “Seven”? Some of those images still play in my head at night!] Envy is more dangerous than it sometimes appears at first glance, because of its insidious nature: you start by wanting someone else’s job, then you want her life, then you get mad that she has that job and that life [certainly, she is undeserving and ungrateful], and finally you start wishing ill on her and taking pleasure in her missteps. Envy gets ugly fast…
Formational Theological Education—Part 2: The Competency of the FolkPosted on October 13, 2014 by Timothy SnyderWe learn in our bodies, in concrete situations. We learn from our built-environments and the constructed social contexts which surround us. In theological education, the turn to CPE and field or contextual education have brought these pedagogical realities to the foreground.If it is the case that theological education shifts as models of ministry shift (and that seems to hold from my reading of history), then such learning in ministry ought to become the “research and development” arm of our seminaries and theological schools….
What is Learning?Posted on October 8, 2014 by Holly InglisLearning outcomes – learning styles – learning assessments. We use the word learning in a lot of different contexts but what exactly is the nature of learning and how can educators work to enhance more effective student learning?Israel Galindo, Dean of Lifelong Learning at Columbia Theological Seminary, makes the bold assertion that learning is not an outcome of teaching…
Forks in the Road/Nodes in the Web toward Digital LearningPosted on October 6, 2014 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorI usually don’t see the fork in the road at the time I take it. It’s only looking back that I can say, “Huh. Made a choice there.” Or, occasionally, “Huh. Made a meaningful choice there.”As 2008 slid into 2009, a recent addition to the rank of PhDs and already-long-time member of the adjunct-faculty class, I read a blog post–I suppose for me in that year it must have been a blog post, rather than a Tweet or a Facebook status update–by Dr. A.K.M. “Akma” Adam, recommending his readers’ attention to a *then* recent digital learning video by Michael Wesch. It was “A Portal to Media Literacy” (2008), following upon Wesch’s “The Machine is Us/ing Us” (2007). Both presentations concern learning and the digitization of text…
“Smells Like a B-Minus?”: Surrender Privilege for TransparencyPosted on October 1, 2014 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorUnderstanding by Design is an outcomes-based approach to course design whereby an instructor first articulates her most profligate hopes and dreams for her students: what are the enduring understandings about the subject matter that animate her love for the course and which she strives to kindle in her learners? There is a cost to doing it well, but it’s a cost many of us are more than happy to pay: we have to surrender the privilege of issuing letter-grades from within the fortress of our privileged Instructor’s Black Box, and take up the adult responsibility of making our evaluations processes transparent to learners.Transparency in assessment is a loaded concept for faculty. Traditionally, we are not accustomed to having our discernment questioned: if it “smells like a B-plus” to us, then that is that…