Resources

Is it possible to teach pastoral care online? McGarrah Sharp and Morris describe their process of transforming a residential on-campus pastoral care course into the first online offering of the course at their seminary. They begin by describing a series of pedagogical choices made with the intent of facilitating dynamic movement between peer-to-peer, small group, and whole class discussions throughout the semester. Before and during the course, anxieties arose at many levels of instruction for the professor, teaching assistant, and students. Anecdotes and examples from the online course show how the online course design and facilitation was able to name and respond to anxieties as part of integrating pastoral care course content and practice – a key learning goal for the course. The authors are persuaded that online pedagogy can help identify how anxieties create space for developing empathy as much, if not more than, a traditional on-campus format.

These brief essays by Mary Hess, Eugene Gallagher, and Katherine Turpin are solicited responses from three different contexts to the provocative book by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown, The New Culture of Learning (2011). Mary Hess writes from a seminary context, providing a critical summary of the authors' major concepts and their ramifications, positive and negative, for theological education and the church. Eugene Gallagher writes from a liberal arts setting, identifying characteristics of the face-to-face classroom that would go missing in a careless adoption of online learning environments. Finally, Katherine Turpin reports from the classroom, chronicling her experience in a course she redesigned for a graduate theological setting to employ some of the authors' pedagogical principles and strategies. Together, these responses offer critical appreciation and constructive critique of the work Thomas and Seely Brown have done – and point the conversation forward.

One page Teaching Tactic: encouraging more thoughtful engagement with online discussion boards.

One page Teaching Tactic: student preparation of reading material to increase comprehension and engagement with each other and the topic.

One page Teaching Tactic: using twitter as a tool for class discussion.

One page Teaching Tactic: using, and critiquing, social media to learn about and learn to interpret current events and the role of technology.

One page Teaching Tactic: final projects for an online course.

One page Teaching Tactic: teaching critical thinking skills by interpreting real-life ethical issues.

Reflecting on the complementary pedagogical models on teaching courses related to religion and the environment presented in this issue of the journal by Kevin O'Brien (“Balancing Critique and Commitment”) and Jennifer Ayres (“Learning on the Ground”), I suggest ways in which these essays form a conversation about teaching. Together, O'Brien and Ayres show how the classroom must acknowledge the materiality and embodied nature of learning, the emotional and intellectual levels of commitment, and the place of critical reflection on our everyday practices and actions. O'Brien and Ayres show the benefits of more fully reflecting on the ecology of the classroom – the relationship between individual members of the educational community, and the educational environment itself – in religious studies and theology.

If theological education is to prepare religious leaders who will respond faithfully and capably to ecological challenges, what models of teaching and learning will best equip them for this work? In conversation with environmental education theory and examples from diverse learning contexts, this paper proposes a model of “learning on the ground” which is characterized by engaged and embodied pedagogy through participation in earth-honoring social practices. See a companion essay in this issue of the journal (Kevin J. O'Brien, “Balancing Critique and Commitment”) and a response to both these essays (Forrest Clingerman, “Pedagogy as a Field Guide to the Ecology of the Classroom”) also published in this issue of the journal.