Resources

NOTE: Use the playlist button located in the top left of the video window above to switch between episodes. Problem-Based learning at Maastricht University (4:38) Although a promotional spot for prospective students, this video nicely details goals, roles, stages, and terms common in “problem-based learning.” Project Based Learning: Explained (3:49) Through examples, the video promotes this method’s educational value and capacity to develop critical thinking, cooperation, and communication. Problem-Based Learning at SIU PA Program (11:25) Goals, roles, and stages (including self-assessment) of problem-based learning demonstrated through a case study approach to physician assistant training. Video emphasizes the active learning dimension of problem-based learning.

NOTE: Use the playlist button located in the top left of the video window above to switch between episodes. What is Critical Thinking? (10:42) With amusing references to pop culture, a philosopher distills the key attributes of critical thinking, offers his own best definition, and expounds why critical thinking should be taught. (10:42) 5 Tips to Improve Your Critical Thinking? (4:30) This TED.Ed video describes a 5-Step Process for using critical thinking to improve decision-making: Formulate Your Question, Gather Your Information, Apply the Information, Consider the Implications, Explore Other Points of View.

Best Practices in Online Teaching Online Teaching: Best Practices (8:52) This video summarizes 10 Best Practices for online teaching. What distinguishes the presenter’s approach is that she provides multiple ways to employ each individual practice. How to Design Your Online Course (5:43) Detailed discussion of how to apply 3 key principles of backward design to online teaching: Identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence (assessment), plan learning experiences and facilitation. Online Classes: Tips for Success (10:48) Engaging summary of what students like about online courses, why distraction challenges student learning online, factors that detract or contribute to online learning, and some ways to increase odds of success. Recommended for prospective online students as well as teachers. Evaluating Discussion Boards (6:39) Three professors describe the rubrics they use for grading contributions to discussion boards. Using Blogs in Online Classes as a Learning Tool (10:52) Why and how to use collaborative and “individual writing network” blogs as an alternative to discussion boards. The presenter suggests guidelines for integrating blogs into online teaching and enumerates the benefits she’s observed. Creating an Interactive and Personal Course (8:22) What student posts in discussion boards tell teachers and how to use this knowledge in “announcement links” to interact with the class. Other purposes of general comments from the instructor through these links are outlined as well. Presenter discusses the advantage of blogs over discussion boards for personal interaction with individual students. VoiceThread in Online Courses (15:39) A thorough introduction to using VoiceThread: what it is, benefits of using it, challenges it presents, and how to overcome them. How Students Cheat (8:13) Situates student behavior along a “continuum of cheating” and explains forms of cheating less commonly classified as such in order that professors can take steps to minimize these behaviors. Using Weekly Video in Your Online Course (7:06) A professor’s musings on why weekly video posts to students enhance online teaching and learning. Group Discussions in Online Classes (6:23) Strategies for stimulating online small-group discussion of readings and presentations.

NOTE: Use the playlist button located in the top left of the video window above to switch between episodes.

NOTE: Use the playlist button located in the top left of the video window above to switch between episodes. Tips for International TAs (2:20) This video is intended for non-native English speakers TAing in English-speaking environments. Key tips: talk with your peers and professors, practice your English, solicit advice from your students. Establishing Expectations for Your Class (4:46) Stresses the importance of setting policies and communicating them to students clearly at the beginning of a course to help them succeed. Offers key questions to consider when establishing policies around attendance and participation, classroom behavior, late work. Recommends including these in syllabus and presenting them in class. Motivating Students to Succeed (3:14) Presenter offers ways to motivate students to succeed: be passionate about your subject, be clear about “how to succeed” (e.g., through syllabus, rubrics), be connected with student  interests, and be aware of what they want out of the class. Academic Integrity (2:42) A sympathetic approach to teaching students what “Academic Integrity” is and the consequences of violating it. A few comments on how to recognize plagiarism and how to respond. Mid-semester Teaching Evaluations (4:12) Discusses why you should administer your own mid-semester evaluations, what you might include, and how to use the feedback students provide. Being Enthusiastic  about Your Class (2:32) Explores why being enthusiastic while teaching is important and offers simple strategies for expressing engagement and interest in your students. Maintaining Student Engagement  Using Eye Contact & ‘Scanning’  (1:44) Details why and how to use eye contact to enhance learning. Seriously? We have to tell people this? Repetitive of “Being Enthusiastic” video.

In two classes that I teach—“Islam” and “The Qur’an”—I often assign the film Wadjda (dir. Haifaa Al-Mansour, 2012) as the first homework assignment. Wadjda tells the tale of a young girl (same name as the film’s title) in Saudi Arabia who longs to own a bicycle, despite cultural norms that allow them only for boys. Her story takes place before a backdrop of a Muslim society, institutional corruption at her all-girls school, her parent’s crumbling marriage, and a male-dominated world. Most importantly, even for the uninitiated, I find that the film is plenty relatable to American college students. Wadjda, the protagonist, is an adorable, clever, and perseverant young girl and it’s easy to become engrossed in her story. I give students a pair of questions to consider as they watch the film, which we spend time exploring in the following class meeting: 1) In what ways does Wadjda challenge stereotypes (yours or American society’s more broadly) about Islam; 2) In what ways does Wadjda confirm stereotypes about Islam? These questions are straightforward, but I find that they work well because they set a tone that invites students to share their experiences, without risking right or wrong answers at the very beginning of the semester. The questions additionally push students to reflect on the complex choices and characters in the film as well as on their own complexity as agents in the world. Naturally, American students enter a course on Islam with any number of sensational ideas about Muslims. Western cinema, moreover, often presents Muslim characters as nothing more than bloodthirsty villains or quaint Orientalized simpletons (or both), which Jack Shaheen adroitly explores in Reel Bad Arabs (both the title of a monograph and documentary film). Indeed Wadjda could well be the first film college students ever see that portrays Muslims as something other than caricatures. By and large students like the film, but I do struggle with how to make the plot sound more intriguing when I tell students about it on the first day of class (i.e., it’s about a girl who wants a bike?); trailers are helpful. Because Wadjda features primarily female characters, it pushes Western viewers all the more, given the naïve ideas many of us have not only about Muslims in general but about Muslim women in particular. The context of the film also offers much for reflection. It’s the first feature film directed by a Saudi woman. It has received acclaim across many venues, including “Rotten Tomatoes” and the New York Times, which refers to the film as “sweetly subversive.” It was also nominated as best foreign language film for the Academy Awards and adapted in 2015 as an English-language novel. Despite all the benefits from assigning the film, I find that subtitles tend to invite a minority of students to complain, as the labor of viewing while reading taints their experience with the film. While I appreciate this as a consumer—plainly, subtitles can create more work for the film viewer, who often prefers a more passive than active experience—I think it also symbolizes a valuable struggle when encountering new cultures and new ideas. Additionally, unless the viewer knows to interpret a small clue (a shirt with KSA on it), or previously learned the context for the film, it’s actually not even completely clear where the film takes place. Throughout the film, Wadjda’s aloof father explores the possibility of a second marriage, while her mother struggles to provide for her family and create a good life for her only child. Like many good films, the characters in Wadjda are complex and believable. Wadjda argues with authority figures and listens to Western music but also lives innocently in her own challenging world of early adolescence. Toward the goal of acquiring her prized bicycle, Wadjda learns to negotiate a few under the table deals with members from her community (e.g., delivering secret messages between sweethearts), but her primary strategy to earn money involves entering herself in a Qur’an recitation competition. She practices with dedication and her hard work shows. Students won’t usually catch a certain subtlety at this part of the film, but the verses recited in the competition (including their translations in subtitles) speak to many of the themes in the film—thus this scene on its own could work well pedagogically in a number of contexts. While the film resolves the question of acquiring the bike (with an endearing twist), the overall ending leaves Wadjda’s future open to interpretation. I think it leaves a key question for my students: How can Wadjda and other females in the film demonstrate such agency and complexity if Muslim women are supposed to be oppressed? Even though this question presupposes a monolith of “Muslim women,” I think that the first part of the question, which acknowledges complexity and nuance, works well to emphasize one of the main themes of my courses: you can’t study religion without also studying people. Indeed, a required visit to a local mosque is among the most memorable aspects of my course for many students, so starting the semester with a drama helps set the stage for thinking about humanly complicated interactions with our course topic. What makes the film so effective, though, is that it’s not just a central question that the film raises. It touches effectively on so many themes, subtly and explicitly, central to what I want my students to engage throughout the course: gender, Islamophobic stereotypes, “religion” vs. “spirituality,” public vs. private religion, multivalent characters, polygamy, and non-English languages. Islam functions subtly in the film, moreover, which works well pedagogically for communicating how religion often works in people’s lives—as an integrated but still striking aspect of culture and society, in relationship to the lives of individuals, with unique stories and experiences. I’ve introduced other courses I’ve taught, as well, with feature films, and in this way, I think my approach with Wadjda is largely transferable as a model to begin a course. I would like to argue, as well, that it’s a strategy that could do well to receive more attention. After all, how important is the “hook” in any rhetorical expression? I’m of course not arguing that films are necessarily the best hook to capture students’ attention—I think this is largely a matter of taste—but I wonder to what extent that opening a course with a feature film is often overlooked because it doesn’t fit into the typical paradigm of how a college course is supposed to begin. Indeed, how is a college course supposed to begin? Do you use films to frame your courses? What kinds of questions best help your students to make sense of their themes? Have you screened Wadjda for your students? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below!    

NOTE: Use the playlist button located in the top left of the video window above to switch between episodes. Active Learning Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion (4:13) What is Active Learning (5:34) Active Learning Classrooms: Everyone is engaged! (18:45) View full playlist (3 videos) What is Active Learning? (4:12) The video introduces “active learning” and its benefits with helpful examples of active learning strategies to employ in face-to-face and online learning environments. Active Learning Classrooms: Everyone is Engaged! (5:33) Professor and students in a “high-performance workgroup” at McGill University describe and demonstrate features of the active learning design of their course. The benefits of this experience are also enumerated. Learning: 3 Easy Ways for Higher Education (18:45) A detailed Powerpoint presentation of 3 active learning strategies: Pause, Asking Questions, and Using Cases or Problems.