Resources

Mary Ann Beavis and Hyeran Kim-Cragg, a biblical scholar and a practical theologian, respectively, address a number of topics that are engaged by people outside of the contours of usual religious contexts; those who tacitly or consciously engage with scriptural and religious themes. It is this audience that the authors seem in particular to target: the everyday person whose religious viewpoints are influenced by media and popular culture, without their realizing the underlying misconceptions borne of poor theologies, or uncritical appropriation of traditions with little or no basis either on sound doctrine or biblical knowledge. In juxtaposing biblical themes such as creation and apocalypse, sin and salvation, Moses and Jesus, Jews and Christians, God and Satan, Christ and Antichrist, gender and God, purity and sex, and suffering and sacrifice, in a creative dialogue with cinematic culture, the authors seek to dispel many of these aforementioned misconceptions. Beavis and Kim-Cragg have succeeded in making scholarly information accessible, taking pains to define technical terms – whether Hebrew, Greek, or theological jargon – that would otherwise be foreign to nonexperts. They provide solid exegetical and theological analysis of the themes they have chosen. Readers and teachers will find the creative way in which they use movies from a wide array of genres to further their discussion helpful. “Before viewing” and “after viewing” questions allow one to link their cinematic selections with the theological theme under discussion. This is especially helpful since, for the most part, the authors did not choose religious movies; it is, after all, an engagement with popular culture, not religious media. As a professor of constructive theology, I especially appreciate the discussion of salvation in chapter 2, subtly broadening its meaning by disconnecting it from the notion of sin and at least implicitly relating it to the Reign of God, and their discussion of eschatology in chapter 5, rightly linking it with relationship. Another discussion which I found to be of importance in this time of intolerance and rising tides of anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and nativistic impulses, was their discussion on Jews and Christians (chapter 4). While their assertation that “Jesus was a Jew” might seem simplistic, I can attest to the fact that such a statement can be a surprise to some beginning seminary students. Beavis and Kim-Cragg honestly tackle texts in Second Testament that have been interpreted as “anti-Jewish” as well as the history of anti-Semitic interpretations in Christian theology. It is their conclusion that in spite of this persistent prejudice, we stand well to remember that “God blesses all” (62). For teachers in the areas of practical theology, this book can be used in courses that integrate biblical studies with Christian education, theology, or preaching. The authors’ approach to theological themes can prove helpful to beginning seminary students who come with popular misconceptions, only to become disconcerted by learning in the classroom what they believe to be contradictions of faith. The book’s methodology of integrating theological content with media is insightful and consonant with the contemporary world in which our students live and practice ministry. It is particularly useful as teachers become aware of the various learning styles of students and expands their arsenal of creative pedagogical practices. I would hope that this book invites teachers to consider the use of movies, music, photography, and online content such as TED talks in their classroom. This book is a good companion to such sources as Timothy B. Cargal’s, Hearing a Film, Seeing a Sermon, although the latter tends to focus more on homiletical and liturgical integration. I do have some questions. While I assume that the audience for this book is either a lay or church community, the authors themselves never clearly identify their audience: is this meant for a more evangelical or progressive church community, or was it directed primarily to an unchurched community? I would have found it helpful for the authors to have been more explicit about their audience. This leads to a second question: why their particular juxtaposition of selected themes? Was it influenced by context and audience? For example, why discuss God and gender, and not God and justice? Would the latter not have allowed the discussion to be broader than simply whether our God-talk is inclusive in terms of male or female images? At a time of imposition of heteronormativity, homophobia, and rising tide of violence against people of color, it could have led to larger questions about white privilege, and broader assumptions about gender could have been broached. Along those lines, could the discussion have been further enriched with the inclusion of more voices of color, both in the authors’ scholarly sources and in their movie choices? Could some of these very themes have been underscored with such movies as Hidden Stories, The Color Purple, Selma, Even the Rain, The Joy Luck Club, or others that showcase actors of color or LGBTQI persons? These questions, of course, do not detract from the overall importance and value of the book. This book, with its solid theological and biblical analyses, is an important resource particularly for those of us who continuously encounter groups or individuals in our churches, classrooms, and communities that espouse uninformed biblical and theological beliefs influenced by popular culture.

Two years ago I decided to kill voice-over PowerPoint as an online teaching tool. It wasn’t nearly as hard to kill as I thought it would be. And, for good reasons, I won’t go back. If you are new to online teaching, someone will inevitably suggest voice-over PowerPoint as a core component of online course design. They may even insist it is an “easy” entry into online teaching. When I started teaching online graduate seminary courses in theology, I relied heavily on voice-over PowerPoint. I used it for several consecutive years. But not anymore. Voice-over PowerPoint is taxing, redundant, and rigid for both instructors and students. More important, it doesn’t support productive or engaged learning online. Voice-over PowerPoint allows an instructor to design a visual presentation and then record narration or lecture content in sync with the slides. Thankfully, individual slides can be re-recorded without starting over from the beginning. In the narration recording, the instructor controls when the slides advance for the viewer. In online courses, typically the file is converted into streaming video that can be posted for students to view. Slightly more sophisticated tools (Prezi, Screencast-O-Matic, Camtasia, etc.) provide non-linear options or include video. At first glance, these tools simulate residential classroom practices. In residential courses, PowerPoint can enhance learning by adding visual content, important textual information, and helpful organization and pacing. Constructing PowerPoint presentations without voice-over narration is relatively straightforward, and most residential classrooms have appropriate technology support. In residential classrooms, I use PowerPoint to support interactive lecturing, which includes collaborative in-the-moment conversation, clarification, and imagination. Recreating residential patterns for using PowerPoint therefore seems to make sense in the habitat of online teaching and learning, but there are uncomfortable surprises. Voice-over PowerPoint is time intensive, not easily updated, and it tends to lock-in problematic course design. Voice-over PowerPoint is more time consuming when it is an online course component. Even if you are not a stickler for articulate and well-paced narration, it takes substantial time to get it right. Rendering voice-over PowerPoint files to streaming files takes considerable computer processing time. The first time I rendered a video, my computer was locked and unresponsive for six hours. With adequate technology support services, the process can move faster. Yet this means working on lectures well ahead of time, and many instructors lack adequate technical support. In addition, once a PowerPoint is rendered into streaming video, any changes, even very small changes, are incredibly cumbersome and frustrating to implement. One colleague of mine finds rendering videos so exasperating that she works from the tight space of her bedroom closet where she can curse and pound the walls every time her laptop computer crashes. On one occasion it crashed seven consecutive times. In course evaluations and check-ins, my online students have reported that voice-over PowerPoint feels laborious and redundant while residential students often found it helpful. The difference has to do with how online students multitask and manage fulltime work environments while pursuing education. Online learners prefer content they can listen to or watch without long stationary stretches at a computer in a solely receptive rather than interactive mode. When PowerPoint is content heavy and stretches beyond 15 minutes, students report being confused and frustrated. For example, they struggled to take notes while watching and listening because both tasks required the same screen. I responded by providing copies of slides and note-taking guides, but the situation and frustrations did not improve. Relying heavily on voice-over PowerPoint lecturing is not good online pedagogy. In residential contexts it can be interactive and invitational, but online it is one-directional and redundant. Instructors spend a lot of time putting together content not easily updated or augmented. Students spend a lot of time tediously copying down content, memorizing content, and repeating it on an exam. This kind of copying and rehearsing is labor intensive. And in the end, it does not mean students can demonstrate how new information or paradigms are useful, fruitful, or relevant. The learning patterns of redundancy don’t truly engage a learner or enhance a learner’s agency.   Thus, no matter how much time you have already invested, it is wise to avoid relying heavily on voice-over PowerPoint and equivalent tools. Instead, consider these alternative best practices for promoting productive and engaged learning online. Try moving PowerPoint content to course pages. Course page content can include images, links, and embedded PDF readings. Components and texts can be easily updated and corrected by the instructor. Page content can be saved and transferred if your course platform changes. Make sure the information you want to convey to students is not already available from trusted online sources or trusted scholars. Curate, rather than recreate, the best resources to avoid redundant faculty work. In the discipline of theology, this introduces students to a wider range of voices, generously celebrates other scholars’ expertise, and models how and where to find good theological information online. Incorporate interactive learning activities that invite students into the learning process in ways voice-over lectures cannot. For example, one of my objectives in an online Christology course is to raise critical awareness around how images of Jesus can support nationalism, injustice, violence, and racism. I used to provide images in PowerPoint presentation. Now I ask students to go in search of images and post them to a digital bulletin board (such as ./>Padlet). Subsequently students move through page content, external links, and course reading. Afterwards, students return to their posted images and comment on what they have learned, see differently, or want to ask. Due to this small design change, learning became engaged and interactive while requiring far less time-intensive setup. I also widened my own pool of online images. Use short (approximately 10 minutes) recorded video segments to orient students to the content, learning, and objectives you have in mind for a whole course or course module. Basic computer apps and programs support short videos student can watch, listen, or download. Resist the editing impulse and keep it real. This allows students to hear and feel an instructor’s presence as an important point of orientation. Use PowerPoint or related tools sparingly for short forays into content that will not likely need updating. When slide presentation is crucial for course design, consider alternative tools such as ./>VoiceThread which allow students to comment, respond, or ask questions of the instructor in ways embedded in the slide presentation. (There is a yearly fee for VoiceThread, but it may be worth the expense.) Two years ago I killed voice-over PowerPoint in online teaching, and I won’t go back. The kill meant eliminating a central source of my own and student frustration. Not one student has complained about its absence, and the new course design gets strong reviews. Better strategies and shifting imagination have resulted in more sustainable online teaching and learning practices. Best of all, instead of repeating my recorded words and imitating my own voice, students are learning to exercise their own. And I get to see and evaluate more accurately what they are truly learning.

“I’m just so sick of feeling awkward,” I told my spouse the night before the first day of classes this semester. After having taught for eight years in another school across the country, I was about to begin teaching at a new institution. I was bemoaning the fact that everything was different at my new job, and I felt like a fish-out-of-water most of the time. My new colleagues were extremely warm, welcoming, and supportive. But I was still learning the ropes at my new institution. I had to ask questions about nearly everything: how to use the copy machine, if I could use the coffee maker at the end of the hall, how to navigate the learning management system, and who to go to on campus for what. I was also feeling unsure about the new age range of students I’d be teaching. I had been at a small graduate school, comprised of adult students (generally ages 40-70), and I was now at a medium-sized liberal arts institution, teaching mostly undergraduate students (typically 18-21 years old). I hadn’t taught undergraduate students since I had completed my PhD, over 9 years ago. When I was chatting about my nervousness with a friend, she consoled me by saying, “You’ll be fine. Just don’t dress frumpy!” So, when I was getting ready for work on the first day of classes, I went to my closet in search of my least frumpy ensemble. I donned a brightly colored geometric-print skirt and a pair of 3-inch heeled sandals in hopes that my students, over twenty years younger than me, might approve. My first two classes that day went well. I introduced them to the syllabus and assignments, but also sprinkled in some course content. I also tried to introduce them to my teaching style, by using music, 1-min journal writes, and a think-pair-share exercise. By the third class of the day, I was getting into the groove and feeling more confident, which means I began to walk around in the classroom. Then, right in the middle of class, when I was near the front of the room, I stumbled. I lost balance on my right foot—remember: I was wearing 3-inch sandals—and then tried to regain balance by putting all of my weight on my left foot. The next thing I knew, I was tripping around the front of the class and flailing my arms in big circular motions until I went crashing into the whiteboard behind me. The only saving grace was that my skirt remained in place. When I regained my composure and looked up, the 24 students in the room (nearly all of whom were first-years) were staring at me wide-eyed, their mouths gaping. One cried out, “Are you okay?!?!?” I managed to mumble a joke about them not expecting an acrobatics performance in a theology class, but it had no effect. No one laughed. They were, I’m guessing, still in shock. I had to keep talking and teaching, because what else could I do? After class (thankfully my last class for the day), I headed back to my office. I passed my new colleagues in the hall, and did what any self-respecting introvert would do: When they asked me how my first day went, I smiled and said, “Fine!” Then, I went into my office, closed the door, and posted about it on Facebook. The next day, I could laugh about it (and could also tell my new colleagues about it). I laughed about it with my students, which gave them permission to laugh about it too. And now that we are almost at the mid-term mark in the semester, I realize, like most awkward and humbling experiences, there’s a teaching and learning moment in this one too. Here’s what I learned: 1) Embrace the awkward; it may help in relating to students. Even before I fell, I was feeling awkward, but I’m guessing that many of my students were too. As first-year students, it was also their first day of class in a new institution too. Some students had to present me with sheets verifying their learning accommodation needs, which, based on societal stigmas, they might not have preferred to do. Others, I later learned, were first-generation college students and were wondering if they belonged on campus. And a few were single mothers, trying to balance a full course load with parenting and part-time jobs. When I stopped worrying about how I looked and felt, I could be more in tune with their needs. 2) Think about how to help first-year students succeed in a new learning environment. I had been learning the ropes in a new school, but so had they. Many had left home, family, friends, and partners, and they were living away from all of their most stable relationships. They were also learning to manage their time and new freedom. Realizing this, I decided I could do more than simply list on my syllabi the contact information for the Student Success Center. I set some time aside in the course schedule for supportive activities. For example, I had a representative from the Student Success Center come into class and talk about the services they offer; I asked a librarian to demonstrate the research database to them; I led workshops on how to avoid plagiarism, how to read critically, and how to write a theology paper. I also passed around informal evaluations after the first few weeks of class, and I learned that students were feeling nervous about disagreeing (even respectfully) with other students in small groups. So, I led another workshop on respectful, critical dialogue. 3) Be comfortable. I’m back to wearing flats and 1” heels, even if they are frumpy. But it’s not just my shoes that have to feel comfortable, I have learned. So does my teaching style. When I over-plan or am too calculated about what I want to do in any given class session, the delivery usually falls flat (pun fully intended). When I relax, loosen my grip on the lesson place, and let the feel of the room and the students’ questions and concerns guide the way I present the material, it usually works much better. The students are more engaged and take on a more active role in their learning. Have any of you had big embarrassments in the classroom? If so, I’d love to hear about them—not just to stroke my bruised ego, but to hear what you’ve learned from them too! Please comment below.

Ariel Ennis, Assistant Director and Senior Multifaith Educator at the Of Many Institute for Multifaith Leadership in the Office of Global Spiritual Life at New York University, has authored an important contribution to a burgeoning literature on campus-based interfaith and interreligious outreach. Noting that diversity and inclusion initiatives on American campuses frequently address race, sexuality, and gender while ignoring religious identity, Ennis reports on efforts at NYU to create a center to support spiritual life. Special attention is given to the development of a “Faith Zone” curriculum that trains leaders for enhanced multifaith encounters. Ennis analyzes a variety of extant approaches to cross-cultural religious and spiritual experiences, looking at intended outcomes of different programs. Focusing on the concept of “religious literacy,” he describes a framework for the NYU workshops on spiritual diversity that supports religious literacy initiatives. Included in the book is the Faith Zone curriculum and rubrics drawn from the AACU (Association of American Colleges and Universities) VALUE rubrics that are used for post-workshop outcomes assessment. He shares data from these assessments in order to demonstrate the impact on campus of the religious literacy curriculum. The book closes with the author’s reflections on how Faith Zone workshops could be offered on different types of campuses (public/private, religious/secular) and with his recommendations for successfully meeting challenges emerging from the workshops. Campus religious literacy initiatives that Ennis advocates embrace the question: Can we teach people to have more productive conversations about religion and spirituality in diverse settings? Using the definition of religious literacy developed by Dianne Moore of the Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School, Ennis answers this question affirmatively, setting four outcomes for the interfaith curriculum. Workshops will (1) enhance participants’ knowledge of historic and contemporary interconnections of religion with cultural, political, and social life; (2) embrace an ecumenical orientation that offers participants firsthand experience in exploring religio-cultural boundaries; (3) promote self-awareness about the intersections of participants' religio-spiritual identities with larger social forces; and (4) encourage participants' commitment to apply their new found religious literacy through practical projects that bridge intercultural divides. In contrast to Eboo Patel’s portrait of a fraught relationship between interfaith outreach and religious studies programs (https://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/scholarship/interfaith-leadership-a-primer/), Ennis’ book points to positive implications for partnerships on campus between religious studies programs and interfaith outreach. Similarities between Faith Zone outcomes and learning outcomes/assessment of the religion major on many campuses suggest productive cross-fertilization. Students could sustain the long-term impact of the workshop outcomes, adding depth and breadth, through coursework in religious studies grounded in similar learning outcomes. In complementary fashion, religious studies majors could apply learning in the major outside the classroom, enhancing their resumes, through interfaith internships: as graduates of Faith Zone training, they could lead workshops on religious literacy and develop and lead associated campus programming.

This edited volume of 21 articles explores the biblical and theological perspectives, historical foundations, current practices, and future directions of theological education in Australia and was published as part of the Australian College of Theology Monograph Series. The authors represent a wide array of theological disciplines including church history, Old Testament, New Testament, pastoral studies, Christian education, evangelism, spirituality, and theology. In addition to their academic disciplines, the authors come from a variety of backgrounds including adjunct faculty, faculty, administrators from academic intuitions and from the Australian and New Zealand Association of Theological Schools, as well as pastors mainly from evangelical perspectives. Building upon the concept that the church follows where theological education leads, the editors of this volume, Bain and Hussey, argue in their introduction that “theological education is too important a task to be done without careful and ongoing thought. The imperative to be reflective about how we go about our task as theological educator is amplified dramatically by the changing world in which we live” (xix). This volume attempts to survey this current reflection on theological education in the Australian context. The first section of this volume, Biblical and Theological Perspectives, offers three chapters that explore how the ontological view of the centers of theological education impact their praxis. These three chapters represent one of the most insightful parts of this book as the three authors all successfully explore how theological assumptions and perspectives shape how theological education has and is happening in Australia. Barker explains “I offer my reflections on how an evangelical understanding of what we are teaching should shape how we teach it” (4). Many of these same concepts emerge in Starling’s article, “The Scribe, the Steward, and the Inhabiting Word,” where Starling asks how these three metaphors “inform the way in which we seek to shape the curriculum for theological education in our own time and the institutions within which we teach it?” (25). In the second section, Historical Perspectives, six articles explore the historical foundations of theological education in Australia. These chapters examine a variety of themes including theological education in early Christianity, models of western theological education, the impact of American theological education (especially the recently closed Andover Theological seminary), as well as Australian specific chapters with histories of the Australian College of Theology and Sydney Missionary and Bible College. The third and largest section of this book, Current Practices, provides nine articles that examine a variety of current perspectives and groups within Australian theological education including: women, the Chinese immigrants, missional approaches, spiritual formation, attrition, cross-culture ministry, and an empirical exploration of who is currently engaged in theological education. The final section, Future Directions, offers three articles that explore future directions of theological education in the Australian context. Although these three authors provide solid chapters on telecommuting staff and challenges for theological education, this is the weakest section of this volume. After providing a broad foundation with historical perspective and current practices, the future directions lack the visionary perspectives of the rest of the book. It would have been wonderful if this section could have been expanded to examine many of the challenges identified in the Current Practices section. This title provides a valuable piece to the puzzle of theological education around the globe. Theological education is a complex endeavor and through the contextualization of various methods and historical models to it, the challenge of theological education can be addressed with wit and wisdom. This is an important volume and should be added to the collection of major theological libraries and institutions that explore the history of religion and/or approaches to theological education.

Actions of Their Own to Learn: Studies in Knowing, Acting, and Being is an edited volume of fourteen essays which explore the question of what it means to take actions of one’s own to learn. Taking action to learn happens within both formal and informal settings; it also happens during the process of building new knowledge as learners pose questions about the world and design new ways to collect and analyze information to answer those questions (4).The researchers argue that “a conception of what it means to learn must be framed as part of a larger process of building understanding that involves more than the mind” (4). In this constructivist worldview, learning “is a process in which learners are actively involved in the mental construction of ideas using prior knowledge and experiences as a foundation” (6). Building understanding (can) include participants working simultaneously as researchers, teachers, and learners (5). The book is divided into three sections: (1) the power and agency of the learner, (2) active learning with others to build knowledge and community, and (3) the environments that support active learning. In section one, through the use of a mutual learning process, researchers themselves take action to learn and understand the emerging values of the communities they study. For example, White uses autoethnography (and a carbon footprint calculator) to document changes needed to reduce her carbon footprint. She then uses her learning to design a curriculum to help her students take action to reduce their own carbon footprints. As a Provincial Parks educator, Den Hoed challenged “top-down, political, disciplined” educational processes by using Mezirow’s basic theory of transformative learning to “teach for change.” In so doing, he helps his students transform sets of fixed assumptions and expectations to be more “inclusive, discriminating, open, reflective, and emotionally able to change” (63, quoting Cranton [Understanding and Promoting Transformative Learning, 2006]). In section two, scholars who construct knowledge-building communities among disparate groups of learners (grade-school children, physics teachers, math students) have discovered that improvisational co-action, in which ideas “become taken up, built upon, developed, reworked, and elaborated upon by others,” enables shared understandings and learnings that are collectively determined: the class as a whole becomes “the body that learns” (138-140). Towers and Martin discover that improvisational learning, listening authentically to children’s ideas, and building trust helps both teachers and students evolve to see themselves as collaborators rather than competitors (12-13). Finally, section three describes environments that support active learning, including classrooms where students are in control of decisions about how scientific inquiries will proceed, and another, where people come together and create film and photographs (photovoice) to educate, build awareness, and encourage political action. These processes help students develop a deeper connection with course content (208). This book presents a variety of qualitative approaches (narrative, interviews, autoethnography, case study) to activist learning in multiple and variegated learning environments. The scholarship affirms teaching that is firmly student-centered, where teacherly authority is decentered, and power between students and teacher is shared throughout the life of the learning cycle.

The word “magic” appears several times in this book for students on how to succeed in college and university courses. Co-authored by Saundra McGuire, director emerita of the nationally acclaimed Center for Academic Success at Louisiana State University, and her daughter Stephanie McGuire, the volume is laced with stories of seemingly “magical” immediate and dramatic improvement in student performance after the application of the learning strategies described here in ten short chapters. The metacognitive learning strategies described draw on Bloom’s taxonomy and the neuroscience of learning, such as the work of Mark McDaniel (Make It Stick, 2014). They include strategies on reading textbooks, taking notes in class, reviewing, doing homework assignments, time management, and studying for and writing tests and exams. A handy little learning strategies inventory in Appendix C allows students to “predict” their grades based on the strategies they use. More important than these specific learning strategies for this reviewer are the sections of the book devoted to fostering in students a growth mindset that challenges the deterministic view that intelligence is innate (“I’m just not good at math”), and encourages students instead to believe that they can succeed and motivates them emotionally to do the effective work necessary for success. Monitoring self-talk and attributing results to one’s actions rather than external factors are powerful mental tools for improvement. In order to succeed, however, students need more than just a belief that they can do it and a set of effective strategies; they also need to know as specifically as possible what is expected of them. This is where this book addresses not just students but also instructors. Instructors put obstacles in the way of student success by not clearly articulating their expectations (and by creating unsupportive and discouraging classroom experiences and course structures). The book includes a very helpful section in chapter seven on how students should read a course syllabus. Notably, if a syllabus does not seem to clearly lay out expectations, students are encouraged to meet with the instructor for clarification. In fact, one of the strategies is to make regular use of instructor office hours. The book promises that if students use these strategies they can “ace” any course. Will students be disappointed? While the results may be magical, the method is not – hard work using effective strategies is required. Even reading the book may be a stretch for some students, although it is short and largely written in a very accessible style. It will also likely profit students in sciences and technology, where memorization is important, more than those in the humanities, such as religion and theology majors. The book does very little to address strategies for successful research and writing of papers, for instance, and the anecdotes of student success are drawn overwhelmingly from the sciences. However, much can be gained from this book by both students and instructors in all fields. My biggest take-away is the author’s insistence, “Now hear this: All students are capable of excelling” (65). This book shows how.

Medhi Khosrow-Pour, editor; four associate editors; and over forty authors contributed to the volume Social Media in Education: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice. The authors teach and research in various contexts around the globe and as such the book provides insight into a multiplicity of learning contexts. Although much of the book reflects K-12 learning environments, there are several chapters specifically focused on the use of social media in higher education. Despite not focusing on higher education, many chapters have applicability for teaching with and through social media in higher educational contexts. The book is rooted in extensive research and organized into five sections: Curriculum Development and Instructional Design; Higher Education; K-12 Education; Language Education; and Reading, Writing, and Speech. Each section covers topics relevant to teaching and social media in a range of classrooms, online teaching and learning, and specific student learning issues related to the use of social media. Faculty teaching in theological school and university contexts will find sections one and two to be the most helpful (Curriculum Development and Instructional Design; Higher Education). The use of social media in everyday life is ubiquitous and this is underscored throughout this volume. The authors of Chapter 1, “Examining the Benefits of Integrating Social Media into the Classroom,” cite a helpful definition for social media by Bryer and Zabattaro as, “technologies that facilitate social interaction, make possible collaboration, and enable deliberation across stakeholders. The technologies include blogs, wikis, media (audio, photo, video, text), sharing tools, networking platforms (including Facebook), and virtual worlds” (2). The authors of the first chapter examine various pedagogical theories in relation to social media in the classroom and conclude that connectivism theory is perhaps the most helpful. Their outline of principles of connectivism indicates that learning and knowledge rest on a diversity of opinions; learning is a process connected to varieties of information sources; learning may reside in non-human appliances; capacities to learn is more critical that what is known; continual learning is necessary; the capacity to make connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill; up-to date knowledge is vital; and decision making itself is regarded as a learning process (3). None of these conclusions are new. However, the focus on student continual learning and knowledge development through social media constitutes a new direction for thinking about what connotes knowledge, the acquisition of knowledge, and how teachers might foster student learning. One claim that this book asserts often is that social media facilitates active learning and collaborative learning. Resource and information sharing become a democratized project rather than being dependent on the authority of the teacher. In addition, the learning process can be more personalized and active. Co-created learning environments provide degrees of student buy-in that may have been somewhat absent prior to the introduction of social media in contemporary classrooms. The authors contend that creating communities of learners around shared interests fosters continuous learning and the potential for more positive learning environments overall. The authors of Chapter 2 also critique the current gaps in the literature around social media as an instructional tool. They claim there is a lack of information about how social media is utilized in classrooms, a lack of comparative research studies about best practices to develop and design social media strategies for classroom applications, and an overall need for alignment between social media use and assessment practices in classroom teaching (27). Yet, despite gaps in the research they claim, “by facilitating active learning, promoting affective learning outcomes, inspiring creativity and innovation, supporting team-based work, and creating a community of learners [sic], social media enhances [sic] students’ learning” (28). Chapter 3, “Utilizing Social Media to Engage Students in Online Learning: Building Relationships Outside of the Learning Management System” offers a foundational understanding of the history and role of social networking in student learning and provides specific insights about the benefits of social media use and instructor’s roles in relation to it. In addition, the chapter provides a couple of case studies for further reflection about the benefits and challenges associated with the use of social media in teaching. Areas of concern include: access to social media; privacy; time commitment for students and teachers; distraction and lack of focus; and integrity of the materials/content. The question of reliability or integrity of content and its quality requires teachers to help students gain capacities to differentiate content so as to discern what is reliable versus what is not. Social Media in Education also attends to the topic of social media and multi-literacy. It is concerned with understanding the varieties of learning domains that make up student’s learning matrices. The semiotic codes that make up multi-literacies are considered as variant domains of knowledge acquisition and construction. The book’s authors are aware of the multiple identities with which contemporary students navigate social media environments. Adapting and creating social media tools to meet student learning needs is also addressed. TeacherTube is one such example; developed to mirror YouTube and yet focusing exclusively on educational uses for classroom learning. It also indicates the learning level for which the videos might be applicable (K-12 or college). As the authors of Chapter 6, “Incorporating Students’ Digital Identities in Analog Spaces,” contend, “The advent of social media ushered in a time where multi-literacy became increasingly important, as social futures might ultimately be defined by one’s (in)ability to exist in both digital and analog worlds simultaneously” (98). As with any multi-authored volume on a given topic, there are many overlaps between the various chapters that can be repetitive. That said, the book provides a wealth of information about social media in relation to student learning and teaching practice in K-12 and higher educational contexts. One insight that surfaces throughout concerns how teacher intentionality about the use of social media for advancing student learning in any instructional context has a direct correlation with positive student learning outcomes. Aymerich-Franch and Fedele in Chapter 8, “Students’ Privacy Concerns on the Use of Social Media in Higher Education,” affirm that “undergraduate students generally accept the use of social media in the classroom but only when their use is justified and not linked to compulsory activities… students tend to use social networks to organize classroom work among themselves… Students are reluctant to use this social network [Facebook] for activities that involve interaction with faculty or to carry out subject activities organized by faculty” (142). Hence, there is a need for teachers to carefully select and navigate social media spaces in order to both recognize student’s private social media spaces as carrying certain learning capacities that may be outside of the teacher’s domain and to create social media spaces for specific learning activities that may be either teacher or student generated. One way by which teachers may discern what is appropriate for the use of social media in their classroom involves a brief questionnaire that interrogates their own use of social media in the classroom and that of the student’s experience with social media in the classroom (164). This can help teachers discern student familiarity with various types of social media in their own learning experience and aid teachers in discerning what might best meet student learning needs for their desired student learning outcomes. Perhaps one of the greatest strengths of this edited volume are the lists of references at the conclusion of each chapter. They constitute a gold mine for further research into the topics addressed and can widen and deepen one’s understanding of the use of social media in contemporary teaching practices for advancing student learning. Professors of religion and theology will not find any articles directly related to their respective fields of study. However, the book does provide a wealth of ideas that could be modified for teaching in theological schools and higher educational contexts. For example, issues related to the use of iPhoneography could have resonance with questions about hermeneutics and perception in general. In addition, the cost of this volume may encourage faculty to ask their libraries to purchase the book instead of adding it to their personal collection.

When you teach online, you get accustomed to classroom teachers telling you they can’t imagine not being in the same place at the same time as their students. Usually what they dwell on is not being in the same place. They profess difficulty imagining being geographically distant from their students. They question how it’s possible to teach without the body language, visual cues, tone of voice, and the like, that the physical proximity of being together in a classroom affords. Perhaps because I came to online teaching from a background in field education where, by definition, my students left campus to go somewhere else to learn, and in denominational leadership, where leading phone conferences with participants scattered across the country was the norm, I was not overly daunted by the prospect of communicating with people in other places. What I knew would be challenging is the lag in time. I had always relied on the immediacy of classroom teaching. There are some people whose thoughts come out of their mouths perfectly formed into sentences whose meaning is crystal clear. I am not one of them. I tend to economize too much with my words, or make leaps of logic in my head, or have to backtrack to fill in context. When people are taking in what I’m saying at the same time as I’m saying it, however, I can compensate. I am pretty good at quickly sensing what I need to clarify. I am most comfortable when teaching is like a dance and I can use my partner’s responses in real time to make it work. When you teach online, the song can be over by the time you realize that your students never got into the rhythm and have danced a different dance. The hallmark of asynchronous online education is that students are working at different times throughout the week, entering and exiting the class at their own pace and paying you attention on their own time. Their engagement with you and with the material may be just as high as in a classroom, but its timing will be unpredictable. You simply cannot know when a comment or explanation from you will finally reach them. And students experience the same thing, of course, from you. Unless you are willing to log in to the course every hour of every day, their question or confusion might not get addressed right away. Sometimes what happens while you are gone, therefore, is that a misguided thread of discussion can take on a life of its own, a set of odd assumptions can be built up about the reading, or simple errors in the assignment compounded. What I have learned about communication in online teaching—to switch to a different metaphor—is that it bears similarity to letter writing. You write down your thoughts, hit Send and put them into cyberspace, and hope they reach your reader in good time.  Then you wait to know whether your words made enough sense and what your correspondent thinks of them. If the correspondence is important, sometimes you find yourself anxiously going to your mailbox over and over again to see whether anything has been delivered back to you yet in the post. The comparison between online education and letter writing is ironic to say the least.  Usually we think that technology serves to speed everything up in our lives. But it is instructive as well. In the old days of letter writing, we used to take care with what we wrote, and there were conventions that helped us convey meaning. Usually we started with a few references to our correspondent’s most recent missive to us, commenting on their news. Then we would hit the highlights of our own, sharing some content and then reflecting on it. We often concluded with questions for the other to answer the next time they wrote, in part to encourage a swift reply. In online teaching I have learned to take almost excruciating care to frontload what I am trying to teach and to explain ideas and instructions in detail. I try to learn who is in class before it starts so that I can scaffold my teaching upon their experience. I communicate the most important ideas of the course as clearly as I can and follow with some pointed questions to invite them into the discourse. And then I wait and let time do its work.