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Integrating Reflective Structured Dialogue in Religious Studies Classrooms: Summer Workshop 2018
Proposal abstract :
Recent events in American and global history have brought issues of racial inequality, religious differences, sexuality, secularisms, gender, and religious freedom into daily conversations. While it is clear that religion, and therefore the study of religion, intersects many of these topics, most faculty have no formal training in making space for conversations about difficult subjects. Teachers in religious studies classrooms must balance concerns about difficult or contentious issues and the desire for civic engagement with core content, curricular demands, and assessment requirements. What then, are the best practices in religious studies classrooms to teach core content while crafting spaces of genuine encounter, curiosity, resilience, and the ability to engage religious and other differences inside and outside classroom spaces? This workshop engages Reflective Structured Dialogue as a particular pedagogical approach that encourages curiosity, intellectual humility, civic and academic engagement, and enhanced participation in religious studies classrooms.
Learning Abstract :
This workshop engaged Reflective Structured Dialogue as a particular pedagogical approach that encourages curiosity, intellectual humility, civic and academic engagement, and enhanced interpersonal engagement in religious studies classrooms. Goals of the workshop included increased knowledge about how to be intentional in creating spaces for dialogue focused on questions of curiosity, how to introduce listening to understand and speaking to be understood rather than to persuade, how to craft dialogue questions, intervention techniques, and ways to think about dialogue in classroom spaces and in the framing of a specific course. To do this work, the workshop was also designed to invite faculty to tap into their identities and aspirations as teachers with motivating hopes for the project of educating in college/university and religious studies contexts.
Recent events in American and global history have brought issues of racial inequality, religious differences, sexuality, secularisms, gender, and religious freedom into daily conversations. While it is clear that religion, and therefore the study of religion, intersects many of these topics, most faculty have no formal training in making space for conversations about difficult subjects. Teachers in religious studies classrooms must balance concerns about difficult or contentious issues and the desire for civic engagement with core content, curricular demands, and assessment requirements. What then, are the best practices in religious studies classrooms to teach core content while crafting spaces of genuine encounter, curiosity, resilience, and the ability to engage religious and other differences inside and outside classroom spaces? This workshop engages Reflective Structured Dialogue as a particular pedagogical approach that encourages curiosity, intellectual humility, civic and academic engagement, and enhanced participation in religious studies classrooms.
Learning Abstract :
This workshop engaged Reflective Structured Dialogue as a particular pedagogical approach that encourages curiosity, intellectual humility, civic and academic engagement, and enhanced interpersonal engagement in religious studies classrooms. Goals of the workshop included increased knowledge about how to be intentional in creating spaces for dialogue focused on questions of curiosity, how to introduce listening to understand and speaking to be understood rather than to persuade, how to craft dialogue questions, intervention techniques, and ways to think about dialogue in classroom spaces and in the framing of a specific course. To do this work, the workshop was also designed to invite faculty to tap into their identities and aspirations as teachers with motivating hopes for the project of educating in college/university and religious studies contexts.