Blogs

In the first blog of this series (readers are encouraged to read this introductory blog, “Nobody Goes to the Cinema to Read the Screenplay,” HERE), I noted that I’ve tried to boost my multimedia literacy by becoming a student of the cinema and seeking convergences between filmmaking and homiletics. The second blog introduced the importance of audience impact in filmmaking (and especially “impact teams”) as a model for encouraging preachers to find out the impact a sermon actually has had on their hearers’ lives (find Part II HERE). It’s time now to turn to editing, an important step in both filmmaking and preaching. As effortless as it might seem, “a film is a universe where chance is never an excuse for anything . . . it is a series of hundreds of very particular decisions, and every single one of them must be felt. That is the agony and the satisfaction of the process.”[1] The same is true in preaching. (Unfortunately, sometimes the “agony” bit as well.) Instead of chance, we might talk about the Holy Spirit. But even then, it is often said that crafting sermons is “10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.” Part of the 90% is coming up with content, but another part is the arrangement of that content. That’s where editing comes in. Two big picture editing tasks have to do with changing scenes and cutting. Scene changes A lesson in scene changes begins with the script. Look at a film script and you will find that screenwriters indicate a scene change as such: INT. NIXON TEAM OBSERVATION ROOM – DAY – (1977) Soon thereafter might be a similar notation: INT. FROST TEAM OBSERVATION ROOM – DAY – (1977) Every time the scene changes (even simply from the interior of a room indicated as “INT” to the exterior indicated as “EXT” or, in this case, from one interior observation room to another), the screenwriter makes such a notation. In the homiletics classroom, it is instructive to have the screenplay in hand while watching the scene to become more observant of these changes. When the editor has done a successful job, we hardly even notice such changes when immersed in the film. While preachers want hearers to have this experience, it will not be a seamless one if, in the crafting process, preachers are not aware of the scene changes and the sense-making they serve. Therefore, literally inserting scene directions like these in our sermon scripts (as a reminder, I call them scripts) is one step (and not a very time consuming one) in the revision process. This helps us see if scenes are changing too often or not enough, or if they are in the right order. So, for example, one might see the following in a sermon script. EXT. SEA OF GALILEE – DAY – (30 C.E.) After a move highlighting the disciples strengthened relationship with Jesus, the preacher might remind her congregation about a recent congregational gathering organized for the purpose of strengthening their relationship with Jesus. The preacher would add the following to the script:  INT. FIRST LUTHERAN FELLOWSHIP HALL – DAY – (2019) It often comes as a surprise to preachers to see how many times they flip back and forth between the 1st c. and the 21st c. in only one paragraph of writing. The result creates a kind of “homiletical jet lag” for the hearer and, therefore, needs to be edited. If preachers do keep the back-and-forth nature between centuries, transitional phrases become very important as “establishing shots.” Unlike the filmmaker, the preacher typically does not have a visual to suggest such a change. The visual must be created with words. A common (if not somewhat cliché) transition is, “just like the disciple, we . . .” At least this serves to move the hearer from the 1st c. to the present. Cutting Pardon the violent imagery, but “Kill Your Darlings” is the phrase used to exhort creatives to get rid of one’s pet (some say “self-indulgent”) scenes in order to serve “the greater good of the work.” In the same way that filmmakers know that movie-goers will not sit for a 4-hour film (nor will their budgets allow for it), preachers know the time expectations of their parishioners. A one-hour worship service likely requires a sermon that is no longer than 15 minutes. So, using best practices from filmmaking, teachers can teach the following steps to student preachers. First, return to the importance of impact; in preaching, this is called the sermon’s function. Make sure each move of the sermon advances that hoped-for impact and cut everything that does not. While that opening joke might get a laugh, if it does not guide people to a deeper relationship with Jesus, cut it. Second, rethink too much exposition of background story. Think: less is more. The film editor discovers it may not be necessary to run through a montage that begins with the moment of the protagonist’s birth, followed up with a wide shot of a current house before getting to the argument with one’s kids in the living room. Staying close on the body language during the living room dialogue, with an occasional shot of the photographs on the mantel, will give us the idea that there is a backstory. The same is true in preaching. The preacher need not reiterate the entire story that was just read a few minutes earlier. After offering an “establishing shot” followed by a transitional phrase, zoom in to the action of the scene of the living room. Let the hearers fill in the surroundings after you’ve given them what they need in order to do so. Now, I suspect many preachers hardly have enough time just to come up with something to say Sunday after Sunday, much less spend time in the “editing room.” As a teacher of preaching, I tell students that while I cannot give them time, I can teach steps for revising if and when they have even small bits of time. If nothing else, I encourage them to watch more films with an eye toward editing and impact, and perhaps some tools will serve their homiletical practices. [1] Jon Boorstin, Making Movies Work: Thinking Like a Filmmaker (Los Angeles, Silman-James Press), 6.

Amy Oden offers this Christian mindfulness practice for faculty and students who may need to pause occasionally during this time of disruption and anxiety in order to be more fully present. The practice draws on attentive breathing and embodiment from traditions of Christian spiritual practice. In this audio file, Oden walks through the 4 steps of 1) attentive breathing, 2) attentive embodiment, 3) acknowledgement and 4) discovery as outlined in her book, Right Here, Right Now: The Practice of Christian Mindfulness (Abingdon Press, 2017). 4 Steps To Christian Mindfulness Audio File Dr. Oden is also featured as a guest in the Wabash Center's Dialogue On Teaching Podcast.   Episode 10 - A Teacher’s Imagination during the Crisis: Conversation with Amy Oden

I’ve been reviewing instructional video presentations for a project. Primarily I screen them to review how effective the presenter is in applying sound pedagogy. It’s amazing how many basic rules of good communication presenters break—consistently—-even professional speakers and celebrated “master teachers.” The other side of the equation that puzzles me is the level of tolerance audiences seem to have for poor presentations. I wonder sometimes if we’ve seen so few well-delivered presentations that we’ve lowered our expectations, and therefore, demand so little of presenters. Most of the presentations I see are entertaining but not educational, even when they portend to be. Here are five elements that are consistently ignored or poorly handled by presenters—lecturers, instructors, or workshop leaders. If these had been given attention every presentation I reviewed would be improved tremendously. Focus. Presenters need to have ONE focus for their presentation or lecture. The question to ask oneself is, “What is the ONE thing this presentation is about?” When you identify it, then stick to that one thing. The most powerful presentations make the “one thing” a concept, sometimes called a "big idea." Therefore, the better question is, “What is the one concept I want to present?” To maintain focus, it is critical to avoid "scattered dialogue," digressions, or any verbiage that is not on point. If something is not related to or derivative of your big idea, don't talk about it. Scope. Scope has to do with coverage. Any one thing (concept) we choose as our focus can still be complex. The question is, “What is the cope of my treatment for this one thing I want students to learn and master?” Every element of the presentation—from illustration to visuals, should support and legitimately connect with the one concept you are presenting. Pace. The brain has its own rhythm for how it processes information. One element is the role of “attention span.” People have a longer attention span than we give them credit for due to the brain's capacity to "chunk" and make connections with the information it receives; but we have to help students make the connection. One key to helping students process information is the pace of the presentation. An effective rule is to change the learner’s focus every five to seven minutes (using "stimulus variation"), and you want to shift the pace every ten to fifteen minutes. Acquisition. In order for your presentation to be meaningful to the learners, they must be able to “acquire” the concept you are trying to teach. Students cannot learn what they don't understand. The question is, “Do my listeners comprehend what I am communicating?” Therefore, you need to build in points of “testing for comprehension” throughout your presentation. This includes testing for misunderstanding and providing correctives. The flow is: (1) provide exposition, (2) assess comprehension, (3) provide correctives, (4) link to previous, (5) bridge to what is next. Application. The final element that most often is missing from presentations is application. If your listeners or students are not able to immediately apply, at some level, what you are presenting then (1) it is not meaningful to them, and, (2) it will result in a failure of retention. If you cannot make immediate application of the one concept you are teaching, then your learners will tend to forget it as soon as they walk out the door. The next time you prepare a lecture, class, session, or workshop presentation, check to see how well you address each of the five elements for effective instruction.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="562"] Egypt https://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphwatkins47/43570551171/in/album-72157669384150857/[/caption] What is the promise of documentaries for teaching and changing the world? Is the documentary the new pedagogical model for everyday classrooms? Is the professor of tomorrow not a lecturer or one who uses the Socratic method, forums, discussion boards, and blogs, but rather are they documentarians? Is the professor of the “now “ one who makes their own documentaries as content for their classes? Is this the game changer?  Nick Fraser, in his book Say What Happened: A Story of Documentaries says, “. . . docs have morphed into contemporary essays, becoming a form whereby we get to experience highly provisional stabs at reality, but, far more than fictions, which are usually finished and fixed in their own reality, they are transformed by it. . . . . The best docs celebrate a sense of the accidental. And they matter.  Like unknowable bits of the universe, they come into existence when a collision occurs.”[1] Fraser argues in his book that documentaries matter, they change the way we see and engage the world.  Documentaries educate us, transform us, and challenge us. Fraser argues that the documentary is the new long form essay, it is what people are watching as they read. We are no longer a culture that is rooted solely in the literate and oral tradition, but a new tradition has emerged and it is the documentary as reliable scholarly source. If Fraser is right, and I believe he is, then how does this new reality expand our opportunities to teach in ways that are truly transformative and liberating? In my Evangelism and Social Justice course I assigned Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness along with Ava DuVernay’s, Oscar nominated documentary, 13th: From Slavery to Criminal with One Amendment and to my surprise this pairing was a game changers.[2] The students got it because they read, they saw, they felt it, and our conversation was transformative. The students were able to weave the two forms of scholarship together. In this class, we were wrestling with the fact that God calls God’s church to spread the gospel and that gospel is one of justice. God is on the side of the oppressed and God calls us to set the captives free. God calls us to see injustice, call it out and address it by correcting it. We spread the gospel by being the gospel. My students got it. One of my students said to me, “I finally get what Black theology is all about. I get it and I have to do something. Thank you so much for assigning the documentary. I see it now.” When she said, “I see it now!” this was eye opening for me (pun intended). It was the wedding of these two, the written word and the visual demonstration of that word, that help my students see. My students are used to watching Netflix, all of my students had a subscription or access to someone’s subscription and this viewing came natural to them. They live in the visual world and I have found that documentaries, like books, are a part of their scholarly diet. Why not feed this appetite? Do documentaries really make a difference? Can they change the way we see the world and then make us act on behalf of justice? Let me cite one case as example of just how powerful documentaries can be. The Fall 2019 edition of The ARTnews reported, “Agnes Gund believes in giving her art away, with donations of hundreds of works from her collection to the Museum of Modern Art spanning decades and others to the many institutions she has supported. But the 81-year-old philanthropist thought she could achieve more by selling a treasured painting after seeing 13th (Ava DuVernay’s,13th: From Slavery to Criminal with One Amendment). Feeling a call to action, Gund choose to sell her favorite holding . . . for $165 million to billionaire investor Steve Cohen, after refusing his overtures for years.  She then used $100 million of the proceeds from the sale in 2017 to launch the Art for Justice Fund, a partnership with the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors currently working against the scourge of mass incarceration through concrete and poetic means.”[3] Agnes Gund’s worldview was changed by engaging the work of Ava DuVernay. Gund saw and she acted! Can we get our students to see and act? Can we employ the use of documentaries in our classes in similar ways we have employed readings in the pass? Can we make our own documentaries and have them replace our lectures? What does it take to make your own documentary? All it takes is a camera, editing software, and our no-permissions-asking selves to just go and do it. In my African Roots of Black Theology class, I created a two-part documentary to start the class. The students engage my asking the question in the context that gave rise to the question. It is a new and more visceral way for them to engage in a new form of contextual visual education. My students got to travel with me as I traveled through Egypt. I used the daily vlog as way to tell the story, share my questions, pondering and musings. The students go with me to where my story begins and it begins in Africa. I also created photo albums for all major stops along my journey so that students could pause and admire the still images in conversation with the moving images. I offer these examples as a testimony of my first attempts and I look forward to seeing yours as we ask what are the now / next in pedagogical practices? Sample Documentaries: Vlog Style [su_vimeo url="https://vimeo.com/355109032" title="Part #1: Out of Egypt"] Part #1: Out of Egypt I’ve Called My Son: A Son’s Journey Black to Africa (https://vimeo.com/355109032) [su_vimeo url="https://vimeo.com/355118012" title="Part #2: Out of Egypt Final Cut"] Part #2: Out of Egypt Final Cut ) Portraits of Egypt https://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphwatkins47/albums/72157669384150857 Giza Pyramids https://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphwatkins47/albums/72157693534362690 Sakkara, Step, Red & Bent Pyramid https://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphwatkins47/albums/72157697707740291 The Cairo Museum https://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphwatkins47/albums/72157696165977282 The Temple of Aset https://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphwatkins47/albums/72157698917086034 Edfu and Komombo https://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphwatkins47/albums/72157699345621995 Luxor https://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphwatkins47/albums/72157669383738737 Karnak https://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphwatkins47/albums/72157698915679014 East Bank Temples https://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphwatkins47/albums/72157671458282618 Denderah https://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphwatkins47/albums/72157696165292492 Abu Simbel https://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphwatkins47/albums/72157697695476081 References [1] Fraser, Nick.  Say What Happened: A Story of Documentaries. Faber & Faber; London, 2019. p. 28. [2] Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press; NY, 2012. DuVernay, Ava. 13th: From Slavery to Criminal with One Amendment. Netflix; 2016. [3]Sheets, Hilarie M.. “Justice League: How Agnes Gund’s $165 Million sale of a beloved painting helped get others to join the fight against mass incarceration.” In The ARTnews Fall 2019 VOL. 118, NO. 3, p. 75-76.

We are in the midst of unprecedented social upheaval. Many colleagues are being asked to migrate their teaching formats to online learning and curtail their interactions with learners to the digital spaces. Even so, I believe our roles as teachers can assist our students as we move through this crisis, together.  Teaching during crisis can seem as if we are taxed beyond our capabilities, pushed beyond our job descriptions, and stretched beyond our capacities. According to the scientists and medical professionals, this particular crisis will last longer than a few days. The pandemic which grips our nation, and the world, will likely have a duration of months.  We do not know how many months.  We are likely participating in a paradigm shift in higher education. Before our very eyes, this crisis is likely causing long-term societal shifting. The abrupt behavioral shifts of the society are and will continue to affect the patterns and habits in our schools and classrooms. Practices of social distancing will likely linger in our society after the threat of the pandemic has been eliminated. The advantages of online learning will become more utilized as the threat of human proximity lingers in our shared memory. In the midst of so much abrupt and radical change - still yourself. Ask yourself not to panic, but to find balance and calm.   The health, healing and wholeness of our schools and communities will require all of us to be attentive to this situation. Resist the impulse for “business as usual.” In these emotionally charged times, teachers are looked to as role models, as responsible people who set the tone and tenor in our classrooms of students as well as in our own families and communities. We are called to be a non-anxious presence even when we are struggling in anxious times and with our own personal anxieties. Faculties are being asked to immediately shift from a face-to-face format of course design to online learning. Teachers are having to quickly redesign 1,2,3, and in some cases, 4 courses to an online format in a matter of days. Migrating courses from face-to-face formats to online is not impossible, but it takes thought and preparation. Returning to the basics of your course seems key in this unusual/unprecedented situation. Format affects teaching, but it does not have to diminish or weaken your standards. Resist surrendering to your own frustration. Relax your typical standards for what “has to be taught.” A key is to keep your students engaged and keep your learning aim and goals as your guide – there are many, many ways to get to any one of those goals. What do you do? Do enough and do it well enough – it will not be how you planned, but it will be good enough. Do new and needed activities with your students. Remember the learning activities maybe new to you, but likely not new to your students.  Do differently than you planned. Migrating from one format to another is no small task.  Lean into the difference and know that teaching differently does not mean that your teaching will become inferior or bad.  Change does not have to compromise quality. Remind yourself of the metaphor you employ when you think of yourself as a good teacher – in the best of times. Typical metaphors or similes for the good teacher are: gardener, light bearer, guide, architect, chef, builder, dancer. The list could go on. Each of these metaphors has in its wider narrative and iconographic knowledge the role of teacher in a crisis. For example, the gardener knows ways to combat drought or flood; the light bearer knows ways to keep the wicks trimmed and burning; the guide knows alternative routes should one path be blocked or destroyed; the chef knows how to save a ruined dish; the builder knows how to correct architectural errors; the dancer knows how not to get caught unaware when the tempo of the music suddenly changes. In this moment of unimaginable circumstance, use your imagination to encourage yourself for the ways you need to adapt your teaching and teaching persona.  Refrain from allowing your classroom time (online or face-to-face) to dissolve into conversation exclusively about the health crisis. Continue to teach your course, even in its modified and adapted forms.  Students are still enrolled in degree programs and still seeking graduation. Stay focused upon your course topics. It is likely that concentrating upon something other than the crisis will be refreshing to you and your students.  Consider that this is also a time of opportunity, adventure, and new learning. The foil to crisis is creativity. Creativity is the tool of innovation and invention. Let go of that which would have you stay mired in established ways and current semester plans. Allow yourself to think new thoughts about your own old, rehearsed modes of teaching. Let the tropes go! Suspend judgement about the fictitious standard of teaching which no longer applies in this peculiar moment and let yourself be creative. Finish the semester strong by finding ways of engaging with your students on the course themes – it could be that straight forward! In this moment of social distancing, hand washing, quarantine, suspicion, and fear continue to take notice of your students. Inherently, teaching is a communal act. Even in online classrooms, pedagogical intimacy can encourage, strengthen, and hearten students. Students depend upon our words of assurance, our gestures of care, our attitudes of warmth and belonging. Be empathic with your students, remembering that they too are in crisis. The Wabash Center has provided a dedicated page for online teaching - https://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/resources/teaching-online/.  We have also published podcasts of many interviews with colleagues who are well versed in online learning https://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/resources/videos/.  

The notion that learning is not an outcome of teaching is a challenging conundrum to those who teach. Perhaps for two reasons, first, it’s counter intuitive, and second, it begs the question, “Well then what am I teaching for if not to bring about learning?!” While teaching and learning are two sides of the same coin, the reality is that it is possible that what learners actually learn in a given lesson or course has little connection to what the teacher does or is trying to teach. We can imagine that some of this has to do with poor teaching. But some of it has to do with other complex dynamics of learning, including motivation, confirmation bias, attentional states, and capacities. A teacher who does not understand principles of learning, neglects to prepare well-designed learning outcomes, fails to ensure student engagement, and fails to apply sound instructional practices will likely not bring about meaningful learning. But the concept that “learning is not an outcome of teaching” goes deeper than that. The idea has to do with the fact that learners need to be, and are, active participants in their own learning. Regardless of our particular educational intent as teachers, students bring to the learning experience their own expectations, felt needs, goals, assumptions, frames of reference, and limitations related to the learning experience. Those factors often are more determinative of what will actually be learned than will anything the teacher intends or works toward. Experienced congregational ministers are familiar with this phenomenon. Regardless of how well they craft a sermon and despite how intentional they are in being clear about the purpose, function, and objective of the sermon, the fact is that the “real” sermon is the one that is heard by each parishioner in the pew and not the one preached from the pulpit. The preacher may be preaching the one sermon he or she prepared for Sunday, but there will be as many sermons heard as there are people in the sanctuary. This phenomenon always makes for interesting conversations at the door as the pastor greets the parishioners. If five people comment on the sermon on their way out, the preacher will be left wondering how and when it was that they heard those five different things in the sermon! The concept that learning is not an outcome of teaching can challenge certain educational approaches, like “teaching by telling,” lecturing, or an exclusive diet of direct instruction. If learners are active agents in their own learning, then we need to use those educational approaches that tap into what students bring to the learning experience. Ways to Ensure Better Outcomes The best way to ensure better learning outcomes is to design for student engagement. • Facilitate ways for students to discover their own learning and insights • Allow students to negotiate their own learning goals and facilitate ways for them to achieve them • Focus on problem-posing (which requires data gathering, observation, analysis, and interpretation) as well as problem-solving • Cultivate student's capacity for learning how to ask questions rather than getting good at answering teacher’s questions • Facilitate ways for students to construct their knowledge rather than providing them with information • Help students articulate their prejudices and bias • Help students uncover and identify their misunderstandings • Help students identify their resistance to new ideas • Allow students the options of approaching learning in the ways (modalities) they need. • Ensure that students apply knowledge to demonstrate learning, including through non-academic venues.

As a professor, I am caught in the midst of a revolutionary period in education and technology. Education has had a slow building relationship with technology and has even had a love-hate relationship with the use of social media, despite its impenetrable growing prevalence in our lives. For younger generations, social media has gone from phenomenon to cultural norm, and the debate regarding whether or not to integrate social media into the classroom becomes more relevant. Social media is a pandora’s box of opportune connection, knowledge and dangerous pitfall. Though you can live without it, living with it in the digital age puts you among the same pace with the rest of the world. It holds everything that the modern world relies on for information, culture, entertainment and social activity. Aside from the obvious risks of using social media, like distractions and negative digital spaces, I have always been a vocal advocate for using social media in the classroom. As classrooms are going more digital and even more online courses are being taught, I believe that social media becoming a necessary tool to enhance student engagement, teaching methodology and learning development. I can share social media news that is relevant to the class materials or have students find relevant materials from social media which are pertinent to the content of the class. This can be done intentionally in the classroom, but unintentionally, it occurs rather frequently. This is due to the fact that students are already on social media and are sharing, following and seeking information which may help them in their studies. Social media is used by students for their assignments, for support, and for information. Since the students are already on social media, at times it is important to meet them where they are. We only have to look briefly at the major paradigm shift in education as a whole. Social media and technology have become the primary tool for personal education in the past decade, yet when you examine the educational and academic landscape, the archetypical classroom setting with a student listening to the teacher’s lecture has not changed all that much. The conventional antics in education are as always, a far step behind. Students now are gravitating towards learning digitally, where the preference to engage in information and material at an autonomous pace and in a self-directed manner becomes a greater expectation. Younger generations have grown up learning in such a manner, and its elevated efficiency leads me to believe that it’s not the students that need to adapt to educators, but rather the educators that need to adapt to them. Students today can and should expect to learn anywhere they are any time they want; they should be able to have the option to have a diverse learning source, not just the formal teacher and peer, but the global environment of classrooms filled with other teachers and peers. This fosters the opportunity for energetic co-learning and co-creation, inciting more dissemination of information for a democratic audience in a digital space. This is one of the greatest values of social media: its openness and interactiveness. It breaks down the walls between student and educator, allowing for all to be both simultaneously. We cannot slow down the consumption of information online, nor can we slow down how it is disrupting the traditions of education. As a result, rather than being the owner of knowledge I feel my responsibility adjusting towards being a facilitator and guider of knowledge. When I post on social media, I feel as though it is a conscious act of preparing my students to understand how to use social media as an educational, positive and professional tool in the modern climate. Information can quickly be disseminated on social media as the classroom goes beyond the walls of a classroom. Furthermore, it allows my students the chance to send me questions, while also keeping them informed and updated on what is occurring in the classroom. This unique avenue generates new forms of engagement that I would not otherwise establish in the typical classroom setting. The future of education will not be limited to physical spaces and classroom doors. Students and non-students alike should be able to learn in relation to updated current technology that allows for learning without bounds. As educators and students, we need to welcome this philosophy and utilize social media for a progressive education and a right step towards the future. You can follow Grace Ji-Sun Kim on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Years ago I devised a classroom demonstration, to use early in a semester when trying to help students become more aware, first, of the multiple dimensions of religion and, more importantly, of the ways in which diverse analytical lens for comparing and contrasting religion in a “toolbox for critical thought” will bring different dimensions forward while leaving others in the shadows.  Conceptually this is not a groundbreaking theoretical intervention for a first week of class exercise, although it does imply some theoretical “chess moves” that I feel strongly about.  Its main value here is to hone an entertaining and effective way to dramatize my points with a set of children’s blocks—both old-school wooden blocks and a few legos—plus a few crowd-pleasing additions to spice up the demonstration. I wrote this up for Teaching Theology and Religion in 2009 and have used it “live” with reliable success many times since then. Since I recently have been experimenting with moving one of my classes online, I decided to make a video version for my voice-over-powerpoint lectures.  It seems potentially useful to share the video here.     

The Liberty Bell. The Franklin Institute. The Betsy Ross House. The Philadelphia Zoo and Botanical Gardens. The Art Museum (infamous for the Rocky run up the stairs). Boat House Row. The Library.  My brother and I attended public schools in Philadelphia, and these were some of the places we visited on trip days. These days were marvelous! Each trip brought great anticipation. We were thrilled about going, doing, being outside of the school building and away from the routine of the classroom setting. Our excitement, and the excitement of our classmates, was palpable. The excitement burst from the classroom into our household. There were permission slips to be signed, brown bag lunches to be packed, and outfits appropriate for the trip to be laid out the night before. Once we returned from the trip, the stories of what happened and what we experienced carried us for days.  Certain people and some kinds of experiences cannot and should not be brought into the classroom confines. Certain knowledge is best encountered in community, in neighborhood, in museums, in parks, and even on rivers and while crossing over oceans. Taking students to new lands, to meet new peoples, to encounter new smells, tastes, sounds, sights, feels and ideas summons the imagination which is too often dampened in classroom spaces. My hunch is that there are mysteries, experiences, knowledges, and truths which refuse to enter into the classroom; these understandings require learners to participate in excursions, pilgrimages, and field trips. In other words, some of the best learning happens outside of the classroom.  Learners must leave home to learn. If done correctly, excursions guarantee a decrease in a teacher’s control of learning and an increase in a student’s control of learning. Many teachers who, for example, have taken learners to the zoo to view the new born panda only to have little Jane or Johnnie be fascinated by the flock of pigeons and never once pay any attention to the pandas. Pigeons were not on the syllabus and will not be on the test! What if learning resists domestication? What if the better learning does not tame us, but instead makes us wild, unruly and free? What if, when given the chance, learners set their paths in such a way as to render our established curricular choices as being contrived and unhelpful in the landscape of the 21st century? What if the roads discovered while learning are more interesting than the roads mapped by teachers? The longer I teach adults, especially scholars, the more I work-at giving up control of their learning and allowing them to “go” by themselves into learning experiences.  In several classes, I required students design their own excursions based upon the themes we were studying in my course. Students were instructed not to go anywhere alone; they had to take someone from class or from their family or friends or church members. I required that the student facilitate a conversation with the accompanying persons and include the comments and impressions (based upon course learning outcomes) of their companions in their excursion report. Some of the most successful learning of students happened when they went into the world with their teenaged children or their church deacons - going together to places they had not been and talking with persons they had previously had no discussions. I learned from my colleague, Heather Elkins, that some excursions are pilgrimages. Sometimes, leaving the classroom requires the search for and journey to holiness and wholeness. I have had the privilege of witnessing the movement of the Holy Spirit with my students in New York City, Newark, Maui, Accra, Dublin and Long Branch, New Jersey.  Sometimes we were in a retreat setting – there for an intensive course. And other times we were traveling together for weeks – crossing borders, visiting our global neighbors in their own homes, mosques and shrines. Pilgrimage learning takes ahold of entire groups and brings expected and unexpected lessons for teacher and learner, alike. My advice is to resist trying to orchestrate trips which demonstrate the theory you are teaching in class as if the theory is in action in the world. Teaching and learning is much more complicated than this - learning defies this mundane dichotomy. Instead, ask yourself: Which colleagues’ work is best encountered, viewed, and metabolized in a visit to their studios, offices, shops, pulpits, and places of business?  What trip will best assist students with connecting the knowledge they have with the knowledge they need?  What experience will challenge the normative gaze of students and allow them a new vantage point upon the complexity of a craft worth seeing differently and better? Then - design a trip. Excursions, field trips, and pilgrimages must not become logistical nightmares; teachers are not travel agents nor concierges. And, refrain from trips where the passivity of the classroom is duplicated in the field.  Students leaving the classroom to sit in different chairs to hear someone else lecture is not optimal. Take students, body-mind-soul, into the world so they can encounter the unknown and the previously misconstrued. My most agile traveling students have always been my international students.  I suppose it makes sense.  If you are courageous enough to leave home and settle in a new country to learn – going to NYC is welcomed – journeying to learn is your motif. My most fearful students were those who had never traveled on urban public transportation and wanted me to rent a bus from New Jersey to New York so they would not have to bump-up-against the peoples. I paired the fearful students with the international students and off we went to see what there was to see (via NJ Transit and NYC subway). We all survived! Sometimes, mystery tiptoes around pedagogical mundanity and refuses to reveal its riches until we take or send our students out into the world. Avoid the mundane and design encounters for your students which will surprise, delight, befuddle, and amaze. What my brother and I remember most about our childhood field trips is that they were days of fun. Learning moved from the daily routine and became enjoyable.  Plan experiences for your students and for yourself which bring fun and joy into the collective learning. I have just returned from my annual pilgrimage to the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference (SDPC). It was great fun and much joy! SDPC convenes leaders from the academy, church and community to discuss issues of justice. This year more than one thousand persons attended the Washington DC conference.  Also present were two hundred fourteen seminarians attending the conference for academic credit.  This excursion keeps me informed and reminds me of the critical importance of partners and collaborators. The plenary speakers, workshop leaders, preachers and musicians assist me in thinking through the social, economic, and political realities which so greatly impact the teaching and learning in colleges, universities and seminaries. Like the trips in elementary school, my excursion to SDPC renewed my spirit and sent me back to the Wabash Center with new questions and refreshed curiosities. The Wabash Center is a destination for those teachers who want to leave home in order to learn. We are an excursion, a field trip, and in many cases, a pilgrimage. What would it mean for the Wabash Center to expand and deepen the experience of learning by teachers? If the better learning requires leaving the familiar for the unfamiliar, in what ways might the Wabash Center became “unfamiliar” even for the most seasoned teacher? In what ways might the Wabash Center pitch a wider tent for more pilgrims who fear domestication and who are willing to risk gathering and scattering to kindle and rekindle the delight of learning while a teacher?

Cognitive strategies are pedagogical ways that enable learners to manage their own learning. They mediate the transition from teaching to student learning. Instructors and students acquire cognitive strategies from their experience and schooling—for better or worse. Many instructors settle on those strategies that "work," or seem to. This is a pragmatic approach often uncritically unlinked to foundational theories of learning or research-based knowledge. The danger here is that it does not take long for these uncritically held strategies to become biased practices. An instructor will continue to use them even when they stop working. Lacking rigorous assessments of learning there is danger in continuing to use methods even when they don't work. Below are four theory- and research-based cognitive strategies. Most instructors use some form or another and likely refer to these as "methods" or "approaches." You can download a handout of these strategies here. Input Cognitive Strategies. An input cognitive strategy depends on those things to which learners pay attention. Most instructors overestimate the level of attention students give to the instructional intent of learning experience (the teacher's lecture, for example). Aside from short attention spans, learners pay attention to events external to them, by their own choice, or by distraction. An external stimulation might include anxiety about a job loss or family situation, which creates significant emotional distraction and is an un-motivator to learn. An internal stimulation might include remembering a career goal, which will motivate learners to give attention to those things in the lesson that will help meet that goal. Input cognitive strategies are applied to intentionally gain and maintain student attention. The rule is: students learn that to which they pay attention; and when they don't pay attention, they don't learn. Process Cognitive Strategies. A process cognitive strategy helps learners make sense of what they learn. Gagné and Medsker (1996) list several such as, Rehearsal: trying out something new; Elaboration: associating something new with something previously learned; Organization: imposing a structure on what is newly learned through such methods as outlining, categorizing, or diagramming. Instructors need to embed student learning activities throughout the lesson or course that facilitate these experiences. Output Cognitive Strategies. An output cognitive strategy helps ensure that learners acquire new knowledge or skills by applying what they have learned and making meaning of their experiences. For example, assigning learners to teach on something they would like to learn. The teaching (output) focuses the learners’ attention on organizing the new knowledge or skill to teach it to others. Through this approach, learners make sense of what they want to learn. Feedback Cognitive Strategies. Through feedback cognitive strategies learners to acquire new knowledge or skills by giving feedback to others. An example is to ask learners to hear a presentation or sermon and provide feedback to another student about that delivery. Giving feedback focuses the learners’ attention on organizing the new knowledge or skill to provide feedback to others. It is necessary to provide students a rubric of the concepts, principles, or criteria for assessment upon which to give feedback. For more information on cognitive strategies see Rothwell, William J., et al., Mastering the Instructional Design Process : A Systematic Approach, Center for Creative Leadership, 2015. See also Gagne and Medsker, The Conditions of Learning Wadsworth Publishing, 1996.