Resources

Approaches to classroom instruction have evolved considerably over the past 50 years. This progress has been spurred by the development of several learning principles and methods of instruction, including active learning, student-centered learning, collabora- tive learning, experiential learning, and problem-based learning. In the present paper, we suggest that these seemingly different strategies share important underlying characteristics and can be viewed as complimentary components of a broader approach to classroom instruction called transformational teaching. Transformational teaching involves creating dynamic relationships between teachers, students, and a shared body of knowledge to promote student learning and personal growth. From this perspective, instructors are intel- lectual coaches who create teams of students who collaborate with each other and with their teacher to master bodies of information. Teachers assume the traditional role of facilitating students’ acquisition of key course concepts, but do so while enhancing students’ personal development and attitudes toward learning. They accomplish these goals by establishing a shared vision for a course, providing modeling and mastery experiences, challenging and encouraging students, personalizing attention and feedback, creating experiential lessons that transcend the boundaries of the classroom, and promoting ample opportunities for preflection and reflection. We propose that these methods are synergistically related and, when used together, maximize students’ potential for intellectual and personal growth.

Located at Wabash College, the Center of Inquiry is dedicated to using evidence to strengthen liberal arts education for all students at all institutions, including collaborating with faculty and staff to build and strengthen the capacity of assessment programs to gather and use evidence to improve student learning.

Online learning tools that teach ethical awareness, critical thinking and ethical decision making. Several “products” are available through contract, including the Ethical Lens Inventory providing students with an awareness of their ethical orientation, Hot Topics Simulations, Ethics Exercises, and the Core Values Simulations

A short essay on different modes of knowledge - intellectual, intuitive, affective, and somatic - that can be used to represent and examine texts in the context of a given course. Mark Unno teaches East Asian Religions at the University of Oregon. 

Monthly postings provide insight and advice for academic deans in theological education. Israel Galindo, Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning at Columbia Theological Seminary, formerly Academic Dean at Baptist Theological Seminary (Richmond), helps leaders apply Bowen Family Systems theory for healthy and effective functioning in home and work settings.

A forum on race and teaching theology and religion, launched in the wake of the August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown and subsequent protests and police response in Ferguson, Missouri, but framed more broadly to encompass teaching for racial and social justice, dismantling the structures of white privilege in academia, and diversifying the faculty, the students, and the canon.

This outline is helpful for understanding the different kinds of knowing required for college learning. It is created by Mark Unno (who teaches Buddhism at the University of Oregon) and based on a study done by Mary Belenky and other scholars, .

A short essay written by a student in the 1990s who regards herself as introverted, describing the particular qualities and experiences associated with her personal style. Posted on Mark Unno’s website, who teaches Buddhism at the University of Oregon.

This guide containing over a dozen essays designed by and for faculty and graduate students in religious studies covering everything from procedural matters on the first day of class through in-depth examination of aspects of pedagogical philosophy.

A short essay written by a student in the 1990s who regards herself as extrovert, describing the particular qualities and experiences associated with her personal style. Posted on Mark Unno’s website, who teaches Buddhism at the University of Oregon.