Seminarium Blog 2015: A Call for BloggersPosted on December 10, 2014 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorSince July 2013, Seminarium Blog (powered by Fortress Press) has hosted essential conversations about teaching and learning in today’s religious-studies and seminary classrooms.Many of us of the large changes sweeping other academic disciplines into new learning models, content delivery technologies and deep systemic changes. How are these reflected and perceived among the institutions, professors and learners that have come to count on Fortress Press for progressive leadership in religious academic publishing?
Before I Take My Classes Online (1 of 3)Posted on December 9, 2014 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorIt may be that you’re already excited about the possibilities of online learning, or maybe find yourself compelled while yet skeptical. Perhaps you have been invited to teach online for the first time…or have been coerced by some means into doing so. Perhaps you have had some experience with online teaching, and it hasn’t worked out well. Whatever your trajectory to this point, you stand at the start of a trek into a foreign land. I frequently tell my learners that reading the Bible is always a cross-cultural experience. Here, I invite you to see online learning and teaching too as a cross-cultural experience—but into a foreign land in which you might elect to establish a permanent residence. Think of it as a second home.Venturing into this foreign country, you’ll naturally be drawn to grasp at any practices or ways of thinking that promise as little change as possible…
Learning to Fish: Part 2—New Questions/New MethodsPosted on December 9, 2014 by David RhoadsWhen I taught at seminary, we had a required course that actually focused on method. The course was called “New Testament Interpretation.” It was a methods course that focused on the ways we go about constructing potential meanings of a text in its first century context. Ironically, all the students assumed from the title that we were going to interpret the New Testament for them by telling them what it meant. They were disappointed in the class….
Dynamic Online Teaching-Resistances & ConversionsPosted on December 8, 2014 by Mindy McGarrah SharpI did not want to do online teaching.Like many theological educators, my education in divinity school and doctoral work was in traditional classroom formats. I attended residential institutions, spent hours in stacks with physical books and their distinct smells, and daily conversed with students and professors in hallways that connected one classroom to another….
What is Sticky Learning?Posted on December 4, 2014 by Holly InglisWhat’s the stickiest thing you can imagine? When you hear the word “sticky,” perhaps you imagine pine pitch, or wallpaper paste, or duct tape, or a burr in your pets’ fur. In the process of remodeling our 1935 cabin we needed to drywall over an existing ceiling. In order to ensure that the drywall stuck, in addition to using drywall screws to secure each piece, we applied construction adhesive. Once the adhesive was applied to the drywall and lifted into place, there was very little time before the piece was permanently fixed in place…