Resources

Education prepares learners for a world that educators cannot possibly anticipate. This has been true for longer than most educators would like to admit but it is even more the case today. Learners are viscerally aware that they inhabit a rapidly shifting landscape that calls the relevance of our courses and institutions into question. These shifts have become all the more dramatic and unpredictable in the last few years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.  The relevance of education in theology and religion is made even more precarious when we present ourselves as a—or even “the”—source of information. To be a source of information is superfluous in the digital information age. Content is googleable. Students have a boundless source of information at their fingertips should they seek it. They are in urgent need of something more important and less accessible: the skill set to critically assess and creatively apply that information while remaining curious for more.  When my children first started school, this was the kind of education I wanted for them: a student-driven, experiential education in 21st Century Skills that would take their voice and agency seriously. I found it in classrooms practicing Problem and Project Based Learning (PBL), an approach to teaching and learning that has long been used in medical and engineering schools and that is increasingly present in elementary and secondary contexts. PBL confronts learners with real life complex problems, asking them to seek out and apply the necessary skills and information to address them. In that way, the course content becomes the means rather than the goal, resulting in increased relevance and retention. The learner is implicitly formed, not by receiving the content but by creatively applying it towards a concrete result. This formation takes the learner’s knowledge and experience seriously and encourages them to utilize it so that they can do the same in whatever landscape they inhabit or enter. What better approach, I thought, for teaching and learning in theological education and religious studies.  I began experimenting with what a PBL classroom would look like in an introductory religious education course in the spring semester of 2020. With trepidation, I began with a sparsely populated syllabus that provided structure and a set of broadly applicable readings, but left time for students to collaborate in small groups around the problems that were most important to them as I circulated, supporting them in seeking out the necessary content to address the problems about which they were most passionate. One group focused on creating Brave Spaces while others wanted to consider how to nurture spirituality in the classroom or apply what they had read about multiple intelligences. Our end goal was not a group presentation of research on the topic; they were to teach the class by doing, not talking about, what they had been working on collaboratively. In the final classes before spring break, they took leadership of the classroom to work toward Brave Space, nurturing spirituality, and engaging multiple intelligences. We planned to return in two weeks to begin a second set of projects focused on formation through experiences outside of classrooms. It was fortunate that we had completed those first projects when we did. When we returned to class, we did so on Zoom. After a lengthy check-in it was apparent that every learner in the virtual space had an urgent real-life complex problem to address in religious education and it was the same problem I had: how could we teach if we couldn’t meet in person? We chucked the entire second half of the syllabus. We spent the next several weeks being and finding resources for one another. Each learner’s problem became not just real-life and complex but took on the specificity of their context so that their ways of addressing them were as varied as the communities they served. They took seriously that they were the content experts in their own contexts. I rewrote the rubric for the final project. At the end of the semester each individual instead of each group took on leadership of our virtual classroom so that we could share in a peer-led online learning activity. My goal had been for them to learn about teaching by doing it; in the process we became a community of learners. In the two years since that first semester when PBL went from theoretical to urgent I have continued to adjust my approach so that I gradually hand over the leadership of the (now multiplatform) classroom. The pernicious prevalence of the PowerPoint presentation motivated me to model experiential teaching and learning in a variety of forms at the beginning of the semester before asking everyone else to do the same. When asked to teach asynchronously, it became clear that I would also need to model experiential asynchronous teaching so that I could ask learners to teach one another asynchronously. Instead of weekly interactive class meetings, I listed a different interactive asynchronous learning activity engaging each unit’s content at the outset then asked all enrolled to do the same for their own passion projects and assess one another’s learning activities in conversation on the discussion board.  It takes courage and humility to move from a content-centered course to a PBL classroom. I love my content. Every reading I am accustomed to assigning feels urgent, as if I cannot send learners out into the world unless they are equipped with it. But the real-world complex problem I am living with is that I am not sending them out at all; they are already living into a world that is shifting under their feet and the ability to creatively shift with it is far more urgent than anything I could ever assign. Interestingly enough, they end up discovering that they need the content along the way and cherish it all the more for having made that discovery themselves. 

The editors of this volume address a gap in scholarship by bringing Problem-based Learning (PBL) into fruitful dialogue with the separately developed Threshold Concepts Framework (TCF). The goal of the volume is to show how TCF enhances the understanding and practice of PBL. None of the authors addresses the teaching of theology or religion; nonetheless, each chapter offers some insight that could readily lend itself to a better understanding of the process of learning in the theology or religious studies classroom. The collection begins with four strong introductory chapters addressing the basics of these two pedagogical approaches and their relationship to each other. The next three chapters lay out how these theories can be found across such different disciplines as engineering education, chemical engineering design, and professional development for university teachers. The final three chapters report on research projects that point out new TCs in additional disciplines. PBL is an educational practice that presents students with real world problems that are not neatly defined and do not have an obvious solution. Students work in groups to decide what further knowledge they need, how to obtain it, and how to represent it. The TCF works with the points at which students cross in a significant way from familiar ways of framing knowledge to a point of disorientation and then to incorporating new knowledge. Savin-Baden and Tombs describe TCs and PBL as independently developed pedagogies but natural partners nonetheless. This is true in two ways. PBL has long described itself as deliberately constructing a path for students toward and through “troublesome” knowledge. Suitable problems for PBL are those that lead students to a point of being stymied in their existing level of knowledge as they address wicked problems that are not easily classified and solved. Often the PBL method is itself troublesome to students as they wrestle with an educational process that shifts responsibility from teacher to student and from individual to group. Operating separately, TCs identify and work with concepts either particular to a discipline or more generally, that require a student to leave the space of prior knowledge and self-understanding and enter into a liminal state in which prior knowledge is no longer viable but new concepts or self-understandings are not yet grasped or stabilized. TCs give attention to the type and amount of scaffolding that is necessary to prepare students and help to direct them through these impasses. Although the TCF was originally developed through consideration of threshold concepts in particular disciplines, the editors go beyond those boundaries to consider transdisciplinary concepts including critical thinking. Even though the chapters devoted to particular disciplines are not all obviously applicable to teaching theology and religion, their authors succeed in making the target ideas more understandable. The chapter most valuable for teachers of theology and religion is the contribution of Jayne Lewis, “Empathy and Problem-based Learning.” People unfamiliar with these two areas will find enough guidance to read the discussion fruitfully; that being said, this collection is not an entry-level introduction but an opportunity for deeper development for those already familiar with one or both of these approaches. There are more proofreading issues in this book than one would expect. Skipped words and puzzling phrases slow readers down while they grapple with making sense of the text.

This book presents an innovative Multidimensional Curriculum Model (MdCM) that develops future thinking literacy among all ages and levels of school students. It combines theory and practice and is highly applicable for policy makers, curriculum coordinators, lecturers at colleges of education, graduate students, and teachers, who are challenged daily to provide meaningful and up-to-date learning. It will aid teachers to prepare learners for the fast-changing world and equip them with skills that will help them control their futures. It combines latest teaching strategies of transdisciplinarity, phenomenon-based, project based, and problem-based learning, in a unique manner so as to develop 21st century skills. More specifically, it aims at developing higher order thinking skills and processes referred to as scientific, creative, and future thinking. It covers core and non-core-curriculum domains, multi and transdisciplinary teaching, as well as designing curricula for the gifted, the able and students at risk. It applies the latest theories on constructivism and carefully selected tools authentically and relevantly to create interest and challenge, addressing learning from personal, global, and time perspectives. Each chapter highlights a strategy or thinking tool, commencing with theory, followed by a unit description and lesson plans. The chapters each end with a final product named the future scenario. This scenario, written by students projecting themselves into the future, is based on accumulated knowledge, summarizes their learning, and illustrates future thinking literacy.

What are “essential questions,” and how do they differ from other kinds of questions? What’s so great about them? Why should you design and use essential questions in your classroom? Essential questions (EQs) help target standards as you organize curriculum content into coherent units that yield focused and thoughtful learning. In the classroom, EQs are used to stimulate students’ discussions and promote a deeper understanding of the content. Whether you are an Understanding by Design (UbD) devotee or are searching for ways to address standards—local or Common Core State Standards—in an engaging way, Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins provide practical guidance on how to design, initiate, and embed inquiry-based teaching and learning in your classroom. Offering dozens of examples, the authors explore the usefulness of EQs in all K–12 content areas, including skill-based areas such as math, PE, language instruction, and arts education. As an important element of their backward design approach to designing curriculum, instruction, and assessment, the authors - Give a comprehensive explanation of why EQs are so important; - Explore seven defining characteristics of EQs; - Distinguish between topical and overarching questions and their uses; - Outline the rationale for using EQs as the focal point in creating units of study; and - Show how to create effective EQs, working from sources including standards, desired understandings, and student misconceptions. Using essential questions can be challenging—for both teachers and students—and this book provides guidance through practical and proven processes, as well as suggested “response strategies” to encourage student engagement. Finally, you will learn how to create a culture of inquiry so that all members of the educational community—students, teachers, and administrators—benefit from the increased rigor and deepened understanding that emerge when essential questions become a guiding force for learners of all ages. (From the Publisher)

A guide to developing productive student-faculty partnerships in higher education Student-faculty partnerships is an innovation that is gaining traction on campuses across the country. There are few established models in this new endeavor, however. Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching: A Guide for Faculty offers administrators, faculty, and students both the theoretical grounding and practical guidelines needed to develop student-faculty partnerships that affirm and improve teaching and learning in higher education. • Provides theory and evidence to support new efforts in student-faculty partnerships • Describes various models for creating and supporting such partnerships • Helps faculty overcome some of the perceived barriers to student-faculty partnerships • Suggests a range of possible levels of partnership that might be appropriate in different circumstances • Includes helpful responses to a range of questions as well as advice from faculty, students, and administrators who have hands-on experience with partnership programs Balancing theory, step-by-step guidelines, expert advice, and practitioner experience, this book is a comprehensive why- and how-to handbook for developing a successful student-faculty partnership program. (From the Publisher)