Resources

Community engagement has evolved as a respected field and now occupies a seat at the academic table. In the past, this work had often been relegated to the institutional fringes of higher education, its practitioners marginalized, and the work often portrayed as service, not scholarly. Today, higher education community engagement is a dynamic and continually evolving field of scholarship and practice that carries ever-increasing academic respect. This book contributes to the ever-under-construction edifice by presenting a scaffolding of the scholarship that has been part of the building process, documenting and analyzing the past, speculating about the future, and framing a continuing conversation about and for the field. There are three parts to this book designed to promote a continuing field-building conversation: a look back at foundational documents of the field; a set of provocative questions interrogating those foundational works; and a look to the future by the next generation of leaders in the field. The central part is the special 20th anniversary issue of the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, which brings together key documents of the scholarship of engagement with reflections on those documents by key scholars and/or the authors of the original works. In addition to highlighting the foundations and evolution of the field, this work also looks ahead to the next generation of voices and views as input to the conversation, with a closing chapter that includes invited essays by nine outstanding community-engaged thinkers and writers of the next 20 years who share their ideas about probable futures. (From the Publisher)

Click Here for Book Review During times of rapid social and religious change, leadership rooted in tradition and committed to the future is the foundation upon which theological schools stand. Theological education owes itself to countless predecessors who paved the way for a thriving academic culture that holds together faith and learning. Daniel O. Aleshire is one of these forerunners who devoted his career to educating future generations through institutional reforms. In honor of Aleshire’s decades of leadership over the Association of Theological Schools, the essays in this book propose methods for schools of various denominational backgrounds to restructure the form and content of their programs by resourcing their own distinctive Christian heritages. Four essayists, former seminary presidents, explore the ideas, doctrines, and ways of life in their schools’ traditions to identify the essential characteristics that will carry their institutions into the future. Additionally, two academic leaders focus on the contributions and challenges for Christian schools presented by non-Christian traditions in a rapidly pluralizing landscape. Together, these six essays offer a pattern of authentic, innovative movement for theological institutions to take toward revitalization as they face new trials and possibilities with faithfulness and hope. This volume concludes with closing words by the honoree himself, offering ways to learn from and grow through Aleshire’s legacy. (From the Publisher)

Click Here for Book Review Positive mentoring relationships are essential to the formation of strong Christian leaders. This simple truth is often held as self-evident, but why? How can theological and biblical insights inform mentoring relationships? And what do these vital relationships look like across a range of Christian experience? Opening multiple angles of vision on the practice of mentoring, Dean K. Thompson and D. Cameron Murchison have assembled an eminent group of scholars to reflect on these and other pressing questions. With contributions from twenty-one remarkable writers, this broad-ranging volume explores mentoring in biblical and theological perspective, within the context of diverse national and international communities, and across generations. (From the Publisher)

Click Here for Book Review This book presents the views of leading scholars, academics, and educators on the renewal of Islamic schools in the Western context. The book argues that as Islamic schools in Western contexts have negotiated the establishment phase they must next embrace a period of renewal. Renewal relates to a purposeful synthesis of the tradition with contemporary educational practice and greater emphasis on empirical research substantiating best practices in Islamic schools. This renewal must reflect teaching and learning practices consistent with an Islamic worldview and pedagogy. It should also inform, among other aspects, classroom management models, and relevant and contextual Islamic and Arabic studies. This book acquaints the reader with contemporary challenges and opportunities in Islamic schools in the Western context with a focus on Australia. (From the Publisher)

A rich collection of essays about the inner, shared experiences of participants engaged in second-person approaches to contemplative practice. Catalyzing the Field presents a diverse series of applied case studies about the second-person dimension of contemplative learning in higher education. As a companion volume to the editors’ previous book, The Intersubjective Turn, the contributors to this book explore various pedagogical scenarios in which intentional forms of practice create and guide consciousness. Their essays demonstrate that practice is not only intellectual, but somatic, phenomenological, emotional, and spiritual as well. Along with their first book, Contemplative Learning and Inquiry across Disciplines, the editors craft an essential body of work that affirms the fundamental importance of contemplative practice in institutions of higher learning. (From the Publisher)

Click Here for Book Review This book examines various intersubjective approaches to contemplative learning and inquiry in higher education. It would interest contemplative studies scholars, and instructors with a previous background in contemplative pedagogy. - Beverley McGuire, University of North Carolina Wilmington A first of its kind, this book maps out current academic approaches in higher education to second-person contemplative education, which addresses contemplative experience from an intersubjective perspective. Until recently, contemplative studies has emphasized a predominantly first-person standpoint, but the expansion and embrace of second-person methods provides a distinctive learning context in which collective wisdom and shared learning can begin to emerge from dialogue among students and groups in the classroom. The contributors to this volume, leading researchers and practitioners from a variety of institutions and departments, examine the theoretical and philosophical foundations of second-person contemplative approaches to instruction, pedagogy, and curricula across various scholarly disciplines. (From the Publisher)

Teaching Religion in a Changing Public University reviews the teaching of religious studies in public universities, with exploration of the challenges and opportunities for the future. Dr. Gravett assesses the current status of the field within the challenges facing universities in general and humanities in particular as we move into the twenty-first century. She notes that: “Revolutionary changes in the higher education landscape call for sustained reflection on impact of these items on the structures in which academic work in religious studies happens and the conditions of faculty life. The advent of new educational technologies, the needs of more diverse student bodies, and alterations in the relationships between universities and communities also raise questions about how religious studies scholars and the programs they provide will evolve.” From this understanding, she provides a succinct and insightful analysis of the types of courses taught in religious studies programs and how these fare (or not) in new modalities impacted by technological change and digital learning. Dr. Gravett’s discussion of the challenges of an increasingly multicultural environment, with its religious pluralism, and the possible roles of religious studies scholars and programs, orient the reader toward present complexities and the potential of religious studies to not only survive but add increasing impact in the future. (From the Publisher)

I have just experienced a new first in my teaching career: This week I had to re-design a course for a face-to-face format from an online format. I recently switched jobs. After teaching for half a dozen years in a school that exists primarily online, I am now back in a residential context, working for a school that exists primarily on a brick-and-mortar campus. I have been invited to teach a course next year, and I thought it would be a simple matter to adapt one I had offered at my previous institution. So, without hesitation, I accepted the invitation. Then, the Registrar asked me if I could teach in the school’s evening program—one class session per week for 2’45”. Two hours and forty-five minutes?! I realized with a gasp that I no longer knew what I would do with such a sustained block of time. Lengthy lectures are a thing of my distant past. When I first started teaching online, I had to work to pare my presentations down to twenty minutes. Recently, I attended a workshop where I learned that the average student attention span--before the mind starts wandering--is something like nine minutes. “Limit your presentations to twelve minutes, max,” the leader admonished us, “and even then, make them funny or catchy in some way.” Discussion, of course, can use up a lot of minutes. But there, too, I have become accustomed to disciplined time management. I developed the habit of checking in to my online course discussions daily, spending only about thirty minutes monitoring and guiding each thread; an hour, max. Online courses have so many elements to attend to that online instructors learn not to get sucked too deeply into every discussion. I forced myself to recall what I used to do in the old days of classroom teaching because I had a vague memory of class sessions flying by with never enough time before students were stuffing their books into backpacks and dashing out the door. Oh, right: Debates. Case study exercises. Role plays. Problem-solving. Guest speakers. In-class writing. All of which, I realized, I had at one point modified for the online environment. Versions of these learning activities still populated my syllabi; it was just that they happened in smaller chunks, spread throughout a week rather than concentrated in an evening. In addition to how differently time gets used in online vs. face-to-face teaching, my conversation with the Registrar also brought to mind the difference between virtual and live presence. I realized that I would once again have to muster up the energy to regularly face a room full of live bodies. Would I have to stand on my feet in front of them the whole time? Would they sit there and stare at me? I recalled the adrenaline rush that always made my palms a little sweaty before walking into class and the dissipation that left me feeling drained for several hours afterward. For six years my body had been spared all that. You don’t get particularly nervous sitting in your familiar, quiet office reading discussion posts, watching videos, and answering emails. And if for some reason you do, you can always take a break and leave for a walk or a snack or even some errands, with no one becoming the wiser. Speaking of quiet, I started recalling how noisy classrooms could sometimes become. Or, worse yet, pin-drop silent. I sighed, remembering the dual agonies of having to cajole speech out of taciturn participants and having to serve as traffic cop during swift-moving exchanges where everyone talked at once. Like all students, online students naturally vary in terms of their participation levels, but the format makes it possible to require that all of them contribute at least the same minimum to every activity. As another blogger in this series put it, “Discussion dynamics online become more democratic when each student is equally invited and expected to contribute to conversation” (Miriam Y. Perkins, “How Teaching Online Enhances Residential Pedagogies: The Big Picture,” Online Teaching, Online Learning, February 12, 2019). I am confident that come next year when I am teaching again in a traditional classroom, I will re-adapt, and eventually relish the immediacy and liveliness and spontaneity it affords. But I am also reasonably confident that I will miss the steady, measured egalitarianism of my former online world, and the kind of teaching it made possible.

As an online instructor who understands the rigors of course design and management, I often wonder if it would be easier to livestream a class through video conferencing, rather than prepare an asynchronous course module by module. In a Hamlet-esque way, I ask: “whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the outrage of course design, or to storm through a sea of troubles by streaming?” In this post, I talk about the perils and advantages of video conferencing a class each week.  First, the challenges and in conclusion, the draw. One, I’m terrible at multi-tasking and with video conferencing, the instructor has to teach the course content and manage the live stream. On my debut day of teaching a live-streamed course for 25 seminarians, several could not log in . Some had audio, but no video. Others had video, but no audio. I spent the first 30 minutes of class trying to get everyone functional. I called IT for help. It was rough. My recommendation is to meet with students a week before class starts to work out technical problems. Help students log in correctly and explain the essentials of video conferencing, such as how to mute the microphone or share their video screen. Make it fun! Prepare ice-breaker questions, ask students to take turns muting and unmuting their microphones, hear everyone’s stories, and share family photos from your desktop. Getting the kinks out of video conferencing in a pre-class session is far less stressful than managing tech hiccups on the first day. Two, how do you manage discussion among 25 people or more in a live-stream setting? If your video conferencing platform does not have a ‘breakout’ feature, then establishing an etiquette for dialogue is crucial. Everyone should have a headset-with-microphone set up to prevent hearing each other’s feedback when speaking. The more people in a session, the more likely one will hear static feedback and background noise. Ask students to keep their microphone on mute and only when someone is speaking should one enable the mic. If your video conferencing session has a ‘breakout’ feature, use it! When I was teaching at another institution last fall, the school paid for the full features of Zoom, a popular business conferencing platform. Zoom had a nifty feature: with a click of a button, it would divide the class into small groups. Zoom sent the students out of the main session and into their own private video-conferences. The instructor can set the number of groups and for how long they meet. When their breakout session ends, students are sent back into the main class. Then I had each group share briefly what they discussed and we continued our time together. Finally, with above two challenges alone, even the casual observer can understand that livestreaming a class is hard work. There is no flexibility in the delivery of the course content. Most of the course is delivered during the three hours the class meets each week. If the technology fails, that day’s session is lost. So are there any advantages? A few. With streaming, less work is done on course design. Some instructors might prefer to spend most of their time teaching the class during the term than designing the course module by module before the term begins. Most important, I do think that video conferencing provides a more immediate relational connection between the instructor and students. It helps me to see the students, talk with them face-to-face, interact with them each week, and watch them enjoy what they learn. I experience the same with an asynchronous class, but the process is slower. To stream or not to stream? I’m still deciding which is better. For now, it might be a tie.