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“Spiritual Companioning for Ministry” is a course I recently taught for the first time for a colleague when she took a well-deserved sabbatical. She shared her syllabus and course plan with me and told me that she usually taught it to about 12 students which worked well for the topic. A couple of weeks ahead of the semester, I realized that I was going to have to make some major changes fast; close to 40 students had registered. The class involves a lot of sharing, often around intense topics, in order to become skilled in responding to the issues that surface when companioning others on their spiritual journey. I needed to design a way for so many students to have the ability to engage the texts as well as form a confidential and trusting learning community for the many discussions of this course. The key was to build effective small groups, which we called learning teams. Because Catholic Theological Union has students from around the world we used part of the first class to divide students into learning teams that allowed for diverse voices in each group. During that first class, we also discussed small group dynamics and the learning teams were invited to develop “ground rules” or covenants they wanted to keep with one another. (Examples of covenant points include confidentiality, cell phone use, planned facilitators etc.) The learning teams soon became the cornerstone of the class. They provided a rich framework for practical experience and integration of course material. Community within each learning team was fostered in a number of ways: The classroom was rearranged so that each learning team had a table to sit around. Tables were spaced so that intimate conversations could take place and other groups were not too close. This physical arrangement set the tone for the atmosphere I was hoping to foster in the class. Each session included discussions within learning teams. Discussion prompts might have been for groups of two or three or discussions for six, but students were always in discussions with someone from their learning team. This allowed for a mix in the types of discussion but kept discussions within the learning teams to build relationships throughout the semester. Each class began with a reading assessment where learning teams would discuss the readings and work through an assignment of questions or activities about the readings. This encouraged each student to stay on top of the readings, as their small group would expect their participation in these weekly conversations. Students completed “noticing journals” on our online D2L course management system. They were asked to post brief responses to prompts such as “Discuss a time this week you talked with someone about prayer” or “Discuss a time this week you noticed someone talking about or discerning a decision.” These posts would be read and responded to by learning team members online. One of the gifts of the online discussions was that students who were more hesitant to participate in the larger class setting had an easier time participating in the online forum. Throughout the semester, the worksheets on the readings, the noticing prompts, and in class discussions were more involved. Students engaged one another on progressively deeper levels. I spent less time engaging them in a large group but floated around the room checking in on their discussions, answering questions, and making notes for the next class’ lecture based on what I was noticing in the teams. During the semester, several students experienced serious illness or a death of a beloved family member. The learning teams provided an intimate hands-on forum for spiritually companioning one another in a way that the larger classroom could not have handled. On the last day, I brought in “talking pieces” that represented various discussions from the semester and invited students to “end well.” Learning teams were encouraged to select a talking piece and give each person in their group a challenge, a commendation, and a blessing. The learning teams took their time with this session; some continued well beyond the allotted class time. The sharing was deeply emotional and confirmed that learning teams within a large class provided the framework that modeled and built companionship in a profound way.

How do theological educators help students face the constant reality of failure? Picture this scenario: a second career divinity student suffers health and financial troubles that impede her studies. The impact of these issues revives past psychological wounds. Enduring this morass of difficulties leads to the student’s failure in several class assignments. Further, the weight of the unresolved emotional burdens, partly resurrected through themes in classwork, results in crippling pessimism, angst, and depression. The student begins to conclude that dropping out of school is the only solution despite the negative ramifications this decision will have on her career goals. What are the pedagogical possibilities for instructors and students with regard to issues of failure both in and out of the classroom? In addition to keeping students aware of campus and local health resources that accommodate various needs (including psychological and counseling services, for instance) instructors can develop a helpful methodological ethos around success and failure in the classroom. As the prophet Jeremiah testified, “You shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: When people fall, do they not get up again? If they go astray, do they not turn back?’” (Jer. 8. 4) Pedagogical strategies for encouraging students to confront and overcome failure begin with instructors modeling a lack of fear in this regard. Teachers are not perfect. Nor are lectures, teaching plans, or classroom activities executed perfectly at all times. Responding to hiccups in real time classroom settings indicates there is a way back from past failures as well as traumas that may be at the root of student underperformance. This models effective coping strategies for students. Further, it is helpful to assist students to find ways of processing how the legacy of trauma, both collective and personal, affects learning. Part of the impact of trauma is the defensive posturing in individuals and societies that tends to obscure the origins or initial events that contributed to experiences of upheaval. Theological education, which assists in the dissemination of epistemologies based in critical inquiry, enables students to interrogate traditional and received interpretations, even if, in some cases, only to validate them. Just as the use of critical inquiry in coursework can provide opportunities for facing themes and opening pathways related to trauma in social experience, so can pedagogical strategies, structured in this framework, hone methodological skills of survival and success for students. Developing opportunities for students to enact these strategies also enables instructors to assess the usefulness of particular methods and modes of presentation. The familiar mantra, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” was originally written to encourage students in the educational process. Indeed, teachers can develop specific strategies to help students face problems in classroom performance. These include not only acknowledging difficulties when they arise but also incorporating tactics that analyze obstacles in classroom exercises. For example, tracing patterns or connections, dissecting complications, wrestling with incongruities, working through potential solutions, and testing their implications in classroom exercises model the confrontation skills necessary for overcoming failure. Built on the paradigm of evaluation, critique, and re-evaluation, such teaching methods can help develop the kinds of students who encounter defeat, yet refuse to fail.

Emily Dickinson said, "Hope" is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all- Yet hope is not confidence This bird--frozen in flight and in death--evokes for me both the hope Dickinson speaks of and the precarity that so many feel in these uncertain times. Many theological school deans lead in contexts where success and failure, gain and loss lie close together. The landscapes of education, church, and society have shifted radically under our feet. The future of many institutions cannot be discerned. There are greater forces at work--some benign, some destructive, all-powerful, few predictable. Attempts to fly might fail and no one, in particular, will be at fault. Paradoxically, theological educators are daily in the business of nourishing hope, of remembering, deepening, and empowering the vision of God’s radical love for humanity and creation ever-unfolding in the world. There is no shortage of need or demand for this work. And yet deans are doing a disservice to that work if an institution and its people are blind to the realities and risks before us. Cultivating collective hope means facing together the risks with creativity, candor, and courage. As Ernst Bloch has said, “hope is the opposite of naive optimism . . . It is critical and can be disappointed.” This bleak and beautiful image captures for me the work and commitment of theological education in these times--so precarious and yet soaring with possibility.

This book presents an innovative Multidimensional Curriculum Model (MdCM) that develops future thinking literacy among all ages and levels of school students. It combines theory and practice and is highly applicable for policy makers, curriculum coordinators, lecturers at colleges of education, graduate students, and teachers, who are challenged daily to provide meaningful and up-to-date learning. It will aid teachers to prepare learners for the fast-changing world and equip them with skills that will help them control their futures. It combines latest teaching strategies of transdisciplinarity, phenomenon-based, project based, and problem-based learning, in a unique manner so as to develop 21st century skills. More specifically, it aims at developing higher order thinking skills and processes referred to as scientific, creative, and future thinking. It covers core and non-core-curriculum domains, multi and transdisciplinary teaching, as well as designing curricula for the gifted, the able and students at risk. It applies the latest theories on constructivism and carefully selected tools authentically and relevantly to create interest and challenge, addressing learning from personal, global, and time perspectives. Each chapter highlights a strategy or thinking tool, commencing with theory, followed by a unit description and lesson plans. The chapters each end with a final product named the future scenario. This scenario, written by students projecting themselves into the future, is based on accumulated knowledge, summarizes their learning, and illustrates future thinking literacy.

Click Here for Book Review This is a book for all faculty who are concerned with promoting the persistence of all students whom they teach. Most recognize that faculty play a major role in student retention and success because they typically have more direct contact with students than others on campus. However, little attention has been paid to role of the faculty in this specific mission or to the corresponding characteristics of teaching, teacher-student interactions, and connection to student affairs activities that lead to students’ long-term engagement, to their academic success, and ultimately to graduation. At a time when the numbers of underrepresented students – working adults, minority, first-generation, low-income, and international students – is increasing, this book, a companion to her earlier Teaching Underprepared Students, addresses that lack of specific guidance by providing faculty with additional evidence-based instructional practices geared toward reaching all the students in their classrooms, including those from groups that traditionally have been the least successful, while maintaining high standards and expectations. Recognizing that there are no easy answers, Kathleen Gabriel offers faculty ideas that can be incorporated in, or modified to align with, faculty’s existing teaching methods. She covers topics such as creating a positive and inclusive course climate, fostering a community of learners, increasing engagement and students’ interactions, activating connections with culturally relevant material, reinforcing self-efficacy with growth mindset and mental toughness techniques, improving lectures by building in meaningful educational activities, designing reading and writing assignments for stimulating deep learning and critical thinking, and making grade and assessment choices that can promote learning. (From the Publisher)

While education is based on the broad assumption that what one learns here can transfer over there– across critical transitions – what do we really know about the transfer of knowledge? The question is all the more urgent at a time when there are pressures to “unbundle” higher education to target learning particular subjects and skills for occupational credentialing to the detriment of integrative education that enables students to make connections and integrate their knowledge, skills and habits of mind into a adaptable and critical stance toward the world. This book – the fruit of two-year multi-institutional studies by forty-five researchers from twenty-eight institutions in five countries – identifies enabling practices for, and five essential principles about, writing transfer that should inform decision-making by all higher education stakeholders about how to generally promote the transfer of knowledge. This collection concisely summarizes what we know about writing transfer and explores the implications of writing transfer research for universities’ institutional decisions about writing across the curriculum requirements, general education programs, online and hybrid learning, outcomes assessment, writing-supported experiential learning, e-portfolios, first-year experiences, and other higher education initiatives. This volume makes writing transfer research accessible to administrators, faculty decision makers, and other stakeholders across the curriculum who have a vested interest in preparing students to succeed in their future writing tasks in academia, the workplace, and their civic lives, and offers a framework for addressing the tensions between competency-based education and the integration of knowledge so vital for our society. (From the Publisher)

Click Here for Book Review From the University of California, Berkeley, to Middlebury College, institutions of higher learning increasingly find themselves on the front lines of cultural and political battles over free speech. Repeatedly, students, faculty, administrators, and politically polarizing invited guests square off against one another, assuming contrary positions on the limits of thought and expression, respect for differences, the boundaries of toleration, and protection from harm. In Free Speech on Campus, political philosopher Sigal Ben-Porath examines the current state of the arguments, using real-world examples to explore the contexts in which conflicts erupt, as well as to assess the place of identity politics and concern with safety and dignity within them. She offers a useful framework for thinking about free-speech controversies both inside and outside the college classroom, shifting the focus away from disputes about legality and harm and toward democracy and inclusion. Ben-Porath provides readers with strategies to de-escalate tensions and negotiate highly charged debates surrounding trigger warnings, safe spaces, and speech that verges on hate. Everyone with a stake in campus controversies—professors, students, administrators, and informed members of the wider public—will find something valuable in Ben-Porath's illuminating discussion of these crucially important issues. (From the Publisher)

Click Here for Book Review Pauses constitute a simple technique for enlivening and enhancing the effectiveness of lectures, or indeed of any form of instruction, whether a presentation or in an experiential setting. This book presents the evidence and rationale for breaking up lectures into shorter segments by using pauses to focus attention, reinforce key points, and review learning. It also provides 65 adaptable pause ideas to use at the opening of class, mid-way through, or as closers. Starting with brain science research on attention span and cognitive load, Rice bases her book on two fundamental principles: shorter segments of instruction are better than longer ones, and learners who actively participate in instruction learn better than those who don’t. Pausing helps teachers apply these principles and create student engagement without requiring major changes in their lesson plans. With careful planning, they can integrate pauses into learning sessions with ease and significantly reinforce student learning. They will also gain feedback on students’ comprehension. Rice sets out the characteristics of good pauses, gives advice on how to plan them and how to introduce them to maximum effect. She provides compelling examples and concludes with a repertory of pauses readers can easily modify and apply to any discipline. This book contains a compendium of strategies that any teacher can fruitfully use to reinforce learning, as well as a stepping stone to those seeking to transition to more active learning methods. It: • Makes the case for using pauses • Identifies the primary functions of pauses: focusing, refocusing, enhancing retention, or closing off the learning experience • Provides research evidence from cognitive science and educational psychology • Provides practical guidance for creating quick active learning breaks • Distinguishes between starting, middle, and closing pauses • Includes descriptions, with suggested applications, of 65 pauses (From the Publisher)

Concerned by ongoing debates about higher education that talk past one another, the authors of this book show how to move beyond these and other obstacles to improve the student learning experience and further successful college outcomes. Offering an alternative to the culture of compliance in assessment and accreditation, they propose a different approach which they call the Learning System Paradigm. Building on the shift in focus from teaching to learning, the new paradigm encourages faculty and staff to systematically seek out information on how well students are learning and how well various areas of the institution are supporting the student experience and to use that information to create more coherent and explicit learning experiences for students. The authors begin by surveying the crowded terrain of reform in higher education and proceed from there to explore the emergence of this alternative paradigm that brings all these efforts together in a coherent way. The Learning System Paradigm presented in chapter two includes four key elements—consensus, alignment, student-centeredness, and communication. Chapter three focuses upon developing an encompassing notion of alignment that enables faculty, staff, and administrators to reshape institutional practice in ways that promote synergistic, integrative learning. Chapters four and five turn to practice, exploring the application of the paradigm to the work of curriculum mapping and assignment design. Chapter six focuses upon barriers to the work and presents ways to start and options for moving around barriers, and the final chapter explores ongoing implications of the new paradigm, offering strategies for communicating the impact of alignment on student learning. The book draws upon two recent initiatives in the United States: the Tuning process, adapted from a European approach to breaking down siloes in the European Union educational space; and the Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP), a document that identifies and describes core areas of learning that are common to institutions in the US. Many of the examples are drawn from site visit reports, self-reported activities, workshops, and project experience collected by the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) between 2010 and 2016. In that six-year window, NILOA witnessed the use of Tuning and/or the DQP in hundreds of institutions across the nation.(From the Publisher)