Resources

Teaching Tactic: overview and resources for creating concept maps to organize ideas.

Teaching Tactic: allowing students to establish parts of the curriculum of a course.

TTR Teaching Tactic: analysis of effective use of case studies for teaching ethics.

TTR Teaching Tactic: an analysis of what makes for good questions to prompt student discussions.

TTR Teaching Tactic: designing effective discussion prompts when the professor had laryngitis.

TTR Teaching Tactic: a group process to design an interfaith ritual in which every religion is respected and no religion is privileged.

Short tribute to Bill Placher, as teacher, on the occasion of a panel of AAR Teacher of the Year Award recipients.

Teaching Tactic: low stakes writing assignments to improve class discussions.

Teaching Tactic: role play helps students learn how far a custodian's salary goes.

This article describes and analyzes controversies in Japan brought about by an intercollegiate educational project on religion. The project team, consisting of selected members of the Japanese Association for Religious Studies and the Japanese Association for the Study of Religion and Society, has been planning a new system for qualifying undergraduates as "specialists in religious cultures" (sh ky -bunkasi). It is anticipated that students with this qualification will be engaged in various occupations that require knowledge of different cultures. The project reflects an increased awareness that the academic study of religion should play a social role and be recognized as worthwhile by the public. This article will focus upon the academic and pedagogical challenges that the project members faced in the process of planning a system to assess and qualify students' literacy in religious traditions. It will argue that religious literacy involves the dynamic ability to put knowledge into practice as well as to reflect continuously upon previously acquired knowledge.