Resources

Engaging students in a course in the Sociology of Religion can be a challenge, particularly when working with student populations in a homogeneous region of the country who have limited experience with religious diversity. We approached the course from a sociological/anthropological perspective, requiring each student to complete an in-depth participation/observation research experience and write an ethnographic account of a religion or belief system different from his or her own. While other instructors have used a similar pedagogy, using ethnography with our student population was generally successful as a learning and writing tool.

This article is a presentation and discussion of a seminary course on the Corinthian Correspondence. The pedagogical model for this course was structured to parallel the pattern of Paul's pastoral care from a distance as he relates to the Corinthian congregation by personal visits, delegations from and to the congregation, letters from and to the congregation, and unofficial grapevine types of communication. The course was designed for dispersed students to interact with the Corinthian letters, with each other, and with myself as instructor in ways that 1) simulate a first-century exchange between congregation and apostle and 2) facilitate careful interpretive work on the message of these letters, including their contemporary relevance.

This note from the classroom explores teaching new or alternative religions within the context of a Roman Catholic Liberal Arts College. The essay will specifically focus on a section of a course entitled "Modern Religious Movements" in which students were asked to consider different methodological approaches to the teaching and study of Scientology and the Catholic cult of the Virgin Mary. This note from the classroom details how this rather unexpected comparison prompted students to reconsider the category cult and argues that encouraging self-reflexivity in a largely Catholic classroom can become a crucial means for engaging a broader discussion of new religions, cult discourse, and the academic study of religion itself.

American colleges and universities have invested millions of dollars in equipment and "smart classrooms," but the jury is still out on whether computers have led to a revolutionary improvement in the quality of teaching. Professors are finding new ways to lecture, to run lab sessions, and to interact with students, however. The Chronicle dispatched reporters to classrooms across the country to find some of the most promising or unusual methods of teaching with technology. Some of the courses involve teams of professors and designers, as well as serious investments of time and money, while others are techniques that individual professors have developed using tools that are common on most campuses. No matter how much support they have, the professors have hit their share of roadblocks. But these wired teachers say students are responding positively as class sessions become more interactive. (From the Publisher)

Teaching narratively calls forth images of storytelling, simulation gaming, dramatization and ritual reenactments. But teaching narratively is more than a set of techniques that can be thrown into an eclectic bag of tricks. Narrative is a significant mode of human communication, a bearer of culture, and a potentially profound and far-reaching educational methodology.