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

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.

Pedagogy of the Unimpressed

I quickly learned that I would need to adapt to a more learner-centered approach and find ways of fostering interest and engagement in the subject, of meeting students on their own terms, if the learning experience was going to be a meaningful one. There are, of course, numerous ways to do this, and many of us have had the pleasure of learning with instructors who have found ways of bringing the study of the Bible to life.

An approach I’ve found particularly helpful in recent years in terms of encouraging interest and engagement is the use of wikis. A wiki is quite simply an online platform similar to a website, which individuals or groups can contribute to or amend. Chris Paris offered a helpful introduction to wikis on this blog several months ago, and I want to offer some further thoughts on this subject, particularly in relation to using wikis as a tool to explore the reception of the Bible in order to encourage interest and engagement.

Reception History and Wikis as a Foot in the Door

An issue I began to pick up on in my informal interaction with students was that while they have little formal knowledge of the Bible and its world, they know a good deal—often unwittingly!—about the use and reuse of the Bible in western culture. It was with this in mind that I began to use wikis with a focus on students bringing their own contributions to the learning community in order to foster a sense of curiosity about the subject matter from a place of personal interest.

For example, one of the subjects I teach looks at the “Prophetic and Poetic Voices in the Hebrew Bible”. Exploring subjects such as the Psalms and the Hebrew prophets raises a number of pedagogical difficulties, not least of which is that these can be challenging areas for students to come to grips with—the language and style of these writings are foreign, and even basic engagement requires a good bit of background knowledge and understanding.

As a way to counteract the trepidation or lack of interest that some students feel, I ask students to search out and explore an aspect of the reception history of the biblical texts under discussion, preferably examples that might be of personal interest to them. In this case, how might the psalms or prophetic literature intersect with your interests—be it history, art, music, politics, or sports? Students add their contributions to our class wiki (individually in this instance, though wikis are also great for group work), with a brief description of the example, hyperlinks to relevant sources or commentary, and, if possible, embedded images or videos. The results are always engaging, interesting, and surprising.

The Surprising Afterlife of the Bible (and of the Project!)

I am continually amazed by the far-reaching afterlife of the Bible. If it’s out there, students will find it, and it will go well beyond what you yourself could source for such a project. Returning to the course mentioned above, in the past year alone students have made contributions to our class wiki on how the psalms and prophets have been used in music (hip-hop, reggae, hardcore), TV (Star Trek, The Simpsons, The Walking Dead), film (Titanic, Pulp Fiction, Footloose), politics (Martin Luther King, Jr, 9/11 memorials), classical art, tattoos (you’d be surprised!), and apocalyptic video games, to name just a few areas. These, then, become helpful entry points for discussing other elements in the class, and students have a reference point when we begin exploring topics with which they might not otherwise be familiar.

What’s more, students invariably find this an interesting and fulfilling task, and it is not uncommon for student feedback to report that this was their favourite dimension of the class. In fact, I’ve seen the continuing effect of these projects in ways I did not intend or expect: students have created blogs as a way of continuing to highlight the work they began in their wiki contributions, and others have decided to follow up on these issues in subsequent papers and projects. Finally, the wiki itself can function as a great resource for the students; whether it is for essays or exam preparation, it is a resource that they themselves have built up and can come back to. In terms of fostering interest and engagement, I couldn’t be more pleased with the results.

Unexpected Consequences

While my initial impulse in using wikis was to find ways of fostering interest and engagement, there have been a number of other constructive results that I had not expected, but which will not come as a surprise to those who have been involved in technology-enhanced learning. One of the most notable effects is that wikis flip the classroom and the learning experience (another issue that has been explored on this blog). The students are given a task, and the learning on this issue takes place almost entirely outside of the classroom. Then, when we come together to explore the wiki as a group, the students become the teachers, and we find ourselves debriefing and extrapolating on the quality work that has already been done. In this way, wikis allow for student-generated content to inform the learning that takes place.

 Sounds Great; What Next?

These are, in many ways, early days for the use of wikis in education, and I am very much still learning and experimenting with the use of wikis in my own teaching and learning. Nevertheless, I’ve found wikis to be an extremely valuable tool in helping students gain interest in the study of the Bible, and a natural way to promote engagement with the subject matter. In my next post I’ll explore some of the practical and pedagogical issues that need to be kept in mind if wikis are to be used well as part of the learning experience.

Photo Credit: “Unimpressed” by Tim Green – CC by 2.0

[sociallocker] [/sociallocker]

Add to favorites