Hey, Instructors: Show Us Your Essential Questions! Posted on November 18, 2013 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorI’ll show you mine, and you can show me yours. I have written before on designing a course “backward” from essential questions, using the “Understanding by Design” system created by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. Also here at Seminarium, others have described their own experience with “Understanding by Design.” A key idea is that we teach, not so that the learners will acquire particular facts in our subject matter, but so that they will develop enduring understandings that can be transferred into other contexts and subject matters. Toward this end, early in the process of designing or revising a course (“Intro to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible”) or unit (“Latter Prophets”), you want to come up with the “big ideas” and “essential questions” toward which the assessments, activities, and resources are oriented. These are my own, for the course “Introduction to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible.”
Teaching with Meta-Questions Posted on November 8, 2013 by Jane S. WebsterWhat’s the point? Do you ever get those blank why-are-we-talking-about-this stare? Is your answer too often, “Just because?” Today’s challenge is to consider your larger course agenda and how it maps onto student curiosity. More specifically, it is time to identify the metaquestion you hope your course will answer. . . .
Teaching the Bible in General Education—2 of 2 Posted on August 20, 2013 by Jane S. WebsterMany educators bemoan the fact that students seek the more secure career paths of sciences and professions, often at the expense of the Humanities. Research shows, however, that many students are interested in Religious Studies, especially for the sake of making personal meaning. As a result, students often take courses in Religious Studies as part of their General Education program, and of these courses, Biblical Studies are the most popular. So how do we approach teaching the Bible in order to meet the needs of the discipline, General Education, and student meaning-making?
“I know it when I see it”: Pedagogical Scaffolding—2 of 2 Posted on July 23, 2013 by Jane S. Webster“I know a good one when I see it.” These words haunted my experience as an undergraduate student. No doubt my professors intended to reassure me that they had some reasonable expectations of my work product, but they failed to enlighten me what those expectations might actually be. I groped around in the dark until I would accidently get it right. I was an anxious mess. I vowed to let my students know the secrets of success right from the start. But what is the best and easiest way to do it?
Backwards Course Design in Religious Studies—1 of 2 Posted on July 22, 2013 by Jane S. WebsterAs a new teacher in a liberal arts undergraduate college, I had no idea how to plan a religious studies course, except to imitate the text-book dependent plans of my own teachers. I quickly felt frustrated; no textbooks quite did the trick and my creative innovations felt more like clumsy interruptions. Understanding by Design, by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, gave me some very useful tips that I now pass onto you, adapted for college-level teaching in religion, biblical studies, and theology.