Resources

In this essay I propose that using online tools to connect geographically-separated classrooms for real-time collaborative learning experiences may effectively develop intercultural competency in the religious studies classroom. I explore personal examples from several international and inter-institutional collaborations with Jacques Derrida's reflections on hospitality to explain how using online tools in this way productively puts into question conventions about place, host, and guest. This engagement of students in collaboration with others beyond their classroom is effective because it takes the focus of learning past facts students might learn towards how they are communicating to learn.

When five theological schools realized (a) their graduates affirmed vocation as central to their theology and practice, yet (b) the parishioners of their graduates nevertheless did not feel called, they knew they had to do something. For six years, faculty teams from these schools conducted a variety of experiments in pedagogy, curriculum reform, and program development in order to train their graduates to equip all of God's people to claim and live their vocational identity in the world. This article introduces the identified challenge and necessary theological and pedagogical shift and then describes five of those experiments in greater detail.

These three articles deal with the issue of faith in the classroom – whether one should teach “to,” “for,” or “against” faith. While their institutional settings and experiences are different, the authors all contend that more serious reflection needs to be given to the matter of how religious commitment plays out in our diverse pedagogical settings. The initial article by Carolyn Medine surveys the current climate regarding student spirituality in the classroom, the broader governmental concerns, and, the tensions that inform the choices available to a professor. Todd Penner's essay analyzes faith-as-ideology in the undergraduate classroom, and Marjorie Lehman's contribution analyzes how the issue manifests differently in Jewish Studies.

A renowned child psychoanalyst, Erik H. Erikson (1902–1994) is perhaps best known for his work on developmental theory (Childhood and Society, 1950) and his studies of the lives of Martin Luther (Young Man Luther, 1958) and Gandhi (Gandhi's Truth, 1969). Twice he found himself intensely engaged in the role of teacher – once as a young artist who had been called by a friend to help in the progressive school formed for the children of Sigmund and Anna Freud's patients in Vienna (1927–1932), and years later (1960–1970) as a tenured professor at Harvard. This essay describes Erickson's teaching experience in both settings and suggests some of the reasons he was honored by Harvard in 1980 as a “humane teacher.” Implications from Erikson's educational practice are drawn that demonstrate how Erikson moved beyond the rote memorization and authoritarian educational practice he experienced as a youth. The essay suggests Erikson's teaching stance at Harvard fits the author's theological tradition's use of the term “teaching elder.”

The undergraduate study of religion is predominantly undertaken by non-majors who are meeting a general education requirement. This means that, while curricular discussions make important distinctions between the work of lower- and upper-division courses, many religion and theology faculty are teaching hybrid courses that we call “introductory upper-level courses.” These play an introductory role in general education while also serving the study of religion in a more advanced way. Attention to how these courses fit into multiple curricular goals will be important for the scholarship of teaching and learning in religious studies and theology. This essay draws on scholarship about introductory teaching and a survey of faculty about introductory upper-level courses to argue that the content of such courses should be understood as serving the study of religion at an advanced level, the context should be understood as introducing general education goals, and the goals for intellectual growth must strike a challenging balance between the two.

Transformative Learning Theory and pedagogies leverage disruptive experiences as catalysts for learning and teaching. By facilitating processes of critical analysis and reflection that challenge assumptions, transformative learning reframes what counts as knowledge and the sources and processes for gaining and producing it. Students develop a broader range of perspectives on and entry points for learning and behavior change engaging cognition, embodiment, aesthetics, emotions, and ethics (see Mezirow 1991 and Figures 1 and 2). The open-inquiry, multi-modal nature of transformative learning defies most traditional assessment strategies. This article demonstrates that grounded theory offers the rigorous qualitative analysis needed to document and track transformative learning outcomes in practice. By applying a grounded theory approach to data from over eighty student portfolios across several iterations of a Religion and Ecology course at Emory University, this article demonstrates a successful and replicable assessment of transformative learning pedagogies.

This essay is part of a collection of short essays solicited from authors around the globe who teach religion courses at the college level (not for professional religious training). They are published together with an introduction in Teaching Theology and Religion 18:3 (July 2015). The authors were asked to provide a brief overview of the curriculum, student learning goals, and pedagogical techniques employed in their courses.

This essay is part of a collection of short essays solicited from authors around the globe who teach religion courses at the college level (not for professional religious training). They are published together with an introduction in Teaching Theology and Religion 18:3 (July 2015). The authors were asked to provide a brief overview of the curriculum, student learning goals, and pedagogical techniques employed in their courses.

This essay is part of a collection of short essays solicited from authors around the globe who teach religion courses at the college level (not for professional religious training). They are published together with an introduction in Teaching Theology and Religion 18:3 (July 2015). The authors were asked to provide a brief overview of the curriculum, student learning goals, and pedagogical techniques employed in their courses.

This essay is part of a collection of short essays solicited from authors around the globe who teach religion courses at the college level (not for professional religious training). They are published together with an introduction in Teaching Theology and Religion 18:3 (July 2015). The authors were asked to provide a brief overview of the curriculum, student learning goals, and pedagogical techniques employed in their courses.