Seminarium

The Elements of Great Teaching

Wikis: A Tool for Fostering Interest and Engagement in Biblical Studies (1 of 2)

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Many of us who teach the Bible, particularly in undergraduate liberal arts settings, experience something that resembles culture shock early in our careers. Coming from programs where we specialize in our subject areas alongside other highly motivated and interested friends and colleagues, first attempts at teaching biblical studies to those with little interest in or knowledge of the Bible is a daunting, sometimes disorienting, task. Like many others, I’ve had innumerable experiences of being overcome by dread with the recognition that what I’m teaching simply is not connecting….

The BYOD Classroom: Smartphones May Change How You Teach

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Students appeared with smartphones in my classrooms long before my pocket-sized revolution. Their use of these devices were the trigger for changing how I teach….

These devices allowed them to do more advanced work in-class. This pedagogical shift made my classrooms BYOD/BYOT learning contexts. Bring-your-own-device/technology, in my mind, names an approach to teaching that intensively and directly leverages whatever equipment that arrives in my classrooms via student’s pockets….

Flipping the Classroom: Don’t Sweat the Technique

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For those unfamiliar, the flipped classroom reverses the conventional teach-in-class/learn-at-home approach. Instead teachers introduce content in homework lessons, and students practice the material in the classroom. In theory, this will encourage more hands-on learning when students and teachers meet together. With the help of dynamic media, students can interact with content beyond the level afforded by the traditional lecture experience.

Truth be told this is not a novel idea. Math and science educators, for instance, have been implementing this for the past 20 years. Humanities professors frequently harbor anxiety over what it means for our praxis….

Quite Possibly the Best Resource in Your LMS: Forums

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On what side of the flipped classroom do I put my forums?

Class forums are butter of how I teach “introductions to world religions”-type courses. Forums help me keep my students as far as possible away from approaching “world religions” as a mind-numbing memorization marathon of beliefs and practices that distances them from thinking critically about religion. Students can do that in an anatomy and physiology class, should they choose to study medicine. I think it’s far more interesting for me and the students to have the intro course engage in the current theoretical and methodological debates of religious studies. My goal is for students to learn how to critically think and discuss with others. . . .