Designing a Student-Centered Learning Environment Posted on February 20, 2015 by Cari CrumlyDesigning a student-centered classroom should be built on autonomy. It does not include or involve traditional teaching practices; rather, it is based on collaboration, project- and problem-based learning with integrated technology to allow open discussion, conversation, and debate between students. By examining how to set up the environment for successful practice of student-centered learning, invest in critical ways of appropriating teaching methods and approaches….
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…
Intensive Courses—Requirements and Design Posted on January 23, 2014 by Ryan TormaA number of seminaries, such as Luther Seminary and Bethel Seminary, are developing intensive courses, which bring students on-campus for face-to-face learning for one to two weeks at a time. Instead of 3 hours per week for fifteen weeks, an intensive course might meet up-to 8 hours per day over the course of 5 days. Designing and teaching courses in this format presents a number of significant challenges….
Scarcities 2: Online Learning Platforms Posted on November 4, 2013 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorMy first forays into online learning were projects undertaken to address the “scarcities” of the face-to-face classroom. These were “embellishments” on the classroom that I discussed at the time in terms of collaboration, diffusion, and asynchrony. The “flipped classroom” stands too as a widespread attempt to address the scarcities of the brick-and-mortar learning space. This is why I find myself approaching “online learning” with an attitude different to some of my colleagues. Where some view the online platforms as threatening to “take away” goods associated with the face-to-face classroom, I had first turned to the online platforms seeking relief from the traditional classroom’s scarcities. In a previous post, I wrote about the face-to-face classroom and its scarcities (particularly time, space, permeability, and malleability). This week, I describe two kinds of online learning space and their own scarcities.
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.