ACE Series Part IV: Writing ACE Commentary, or Everything I Need to Know About Arguing I Learned from Billy Madison! Posted on August 13, 2013 by Richard NewtonMy research deals with the scriptures people use to orient their lives. This interest may have begun in adolescence. Much to the chagrin of my youth group directors, my friends and I had a wider canon than the authorized version of any denomination out there. Our central text was the Adam Sandler film, Billy Madison (dir. Tamra Davis, 1995). To us it was a cult classic to be quoted chapter and verse. This movie made those awkward teenage years some how more bearable. For every situation, there was some line from the film available for application. And for whatever reason, when I think of ACE commentary, this film clip comes to mind….
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Posted on August 12, 2013 by Jim PapandreaIn ancient Rome, some emperors decided to try to enforce their authority by building a new forum, under their control, with their own statues, and temples dedicated to the gods of their ancestry. Imagine how hard it must have been to get people to stop going to the ancient forum—the one they were used to—and start going to the new one. Now, when the emperors of the classroom (the professors) want to create an online space where meaningful interaction and discussion will happen, what do they do? They build a new forum, in Moodle or Blackboard, and then try to get their students to go there….
ACE Series Part III: Good Evidence Must ACE the BS Test—It’s the Law! Posted on August 6, 2013 by Richard NewtonWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… Some of my students think that they are Thomas Jefferson. They will write paragraphs with assertions they hold to be self-evident. And while I laud their desire to write revolutionary words, they must first learn that no one, not even the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, can get away with offering evidence-less assertions. Mock academic politics all you want, but higher education at least claims the democratic notion of fair criticism. It’s a place where anyone should be able to call BS on an unsupported assertion at any time. And its participants should get the opportunity to challenge a point’s validity and qualify it with amendments—the 13th, 14, 15th, and 19th in Mr. Jefferson’s case….
The Second Naiveté of Online Learning Posted on August 5, 2013 by Timothy SnyderIncreasingly, online learning is a part of theological education. And yet, the vast majority of current professors were trained in traditional classrooms. Many of us are finding ourselves teaching in settings we ourselves have never had to learn in. How can educators embrace a second naiveté towards online learning? While I was working on my master’s degree, I remembering attending a workshop on “developing a teaching philosophy.” I was in the early stages of applying to doctoral programs so I thought it would be a good chance to learn how many of my professors reflect on their vocation as teachers.
More Backward Course Design: Getting Learning Done! Posted on August 1, 2013 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorImagine yourself at term’s end, talking with a sympathetic faculty colleague, or with a partner or family member. Your head is full of final papers or exams, ranging from exceptional to disappointing, and you cry out, “Argh! I just want them to ‘get’ that…(your rant here)!” If you can complete that sentence, then you have all you need for a start on “backward course design,” an idea fundamental to the widely-used framework Understanding by Design (book by McTighe and Wiggins), and having some similarity to David Allen’s Getting Things Done system of task management. Jane S. Webster blogged here at Seminarium on her own experience with “backward course design,” inspiring in me the same impulse I get when I meet someone with whom I share a love of some obscure musician: an urge to shout “Me, too!” and then talk everybody’s ear off on the subject….