Resources

Theological schools are increasingly exploring online distance education as a mode of course delivery. Yet while online course delivery has the potential for effective, deep learning it can also have a number of pitfalls. This article introduces online distance education and examines in detail the pedagogical possibilities for online learning by providing a number of examples drawn from online courses. While championing the use of online course delivery for theological schools, it also sounds a note of caution by advocating that the use of technology should be driven by sound pedagogical principles. Putting pedagogy before technology will insure quality education no matter what the content or mode of delivery.

Whatever will happen in the way of the confluence of pedagogy and technology, it will not so much perpetuate past models in more efficient ways as it will reflect a stronger element of (for example) the unanticipated success of Napster. The author suggests a fivefold interpretation of Napster's implications as a guideline of what cybermedia do well, and how theological educators can use cybermedia to enrich their classroom teaching by distinguishing online from in-class education. Cybermedia serve best when they do not duplicate or usurp functions best accomplished in person, and personal interaction thrives when not burdened with information-transmission that might as well take place online.

Programs of theological education in Christian traditions are exploring "distanced learning" as one way to address certain challenges to their educational excellence. A major strand in a twenty-year old discussion of the nature and purpose of theological education has urged that analysis of theological schooling's failures and assessment of proposed remedies ought to be framed explicitly in theological terms as part of an ongoing inquiry into what makes theological education properly theological. This essay tries to show how following that advice can make a practical difference in assessing the merits of distanced learning. It does so by raising questions about the theological-anthropological assumptions, respectively, of theological education and of distanced learning.

Four faculty discuss how their institution's launching of a program to implement instructional technology across the campus influenced their teaching and broadened their understanding of student learning. Examples of their first attempts at online projects for classes in homiletics and ecclesiology are described.

The creation and implementation of a Christian theological seminary course, "The Education of Christian Pilgrims," in which the purpose was to prepare students to teach members of a church to be and become a consciously "pilgrim Church." This article describes the genesis of the course, creating a syllabus, the actual pilgrimage undertaken by students and professor, and suggested modifications.

How should we teach religious history? What is the impact of our methodology on what, and on how, our students learn? Is there a methodology that cultivates an awareness of the multiculturalism and the need for deeper social interaction that characterizes many of our classrooms? This essay proposes and briefly explores the potential value of empathetic engagement as a pedagogical tool in response to these concerns. A specific application of empathetic engagement is made to teaching and learning about the history of American Catholicism.

This paper explores exposure learning as a strategy for teaching theology in a Christian seminary, by describing and analyzing one multicultural Asian class's exposure to the "Red Light Districts" of Manila (Philippines). Exposures consist of short-term experiential learning events through participation and immersion into a specific context, preceded and followed by a process of study and reflection. Exposure learning has the potential to minimize certain forms of student resistance around emotionally-charged subjects, such as the integration of race, class, and gender into theological education, because it is the experience together with shared critical reflection on it and not the teacher's viewpoints per se that unsettle prior interpretive frameworks. Exposure learning also carries certain risks and ethical dilemmas, and its long-term effects on transformation remain unclear. In spite of these pedagogical issues which the paper explores in detail, the paper supports exposure learning as an alternative experiential form of education for transformation.

This article explores a variety of personal and professional boundary issues encountered by seminary faculty. The authors contend that boundary crossing is inevitable in contemporary theological education, which is structured such that professors engage in multiple roles with students as they attend to the education of the whole person. Guidelines are reviewed for minimizing risk to students and professors. Topics include life as a community member, student-faculty friendship, and romantic relationships. Attention to work/life balance is seen as critical to the prevention of misconduct. The article ends with a call for continued conversation as well as institutional accountability and change.

This essay explores how one might use the "problem" of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart as a learning opportunity in the classroom. The author identifies two pedagogical aims: (1) cultivating more sophisticated, critical readers of the Bible; and (2) helping students reflect on the contextual nature of interpretation. The essay discusses in some detail various ways of teaching the text, including an exercise in close reading, examination of sources, and a selective study of the history of interpretation. It also explores various lessons to be learned from these exercises, and addresses applicability of the approaches to other teaching contexts. An earlier version of this paper was prepared for the "Problem Texts" group of the consultation "Teaching the Bible in the 21st Century," held at the Wabash Center in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Teachers of theology or religious studies readily seek to open their students to the interpretation of theological texts. Do they share a similar readiness to open students to the interpretation of religious symbols and artifacts, the material cultures of religious faiths? Although theological studies have preferred the abstract concept over the material object, any proper understanding of religious faith must admit some form of direct encounter with the constellation of material symbols surrounding that faith. Teaching students to "read" the material symbols of faith does not do away with the need to help them read and interpret the written word, but supplements and deepens humane, scholarly reflection on religious faith. Helping students to see, to interpret what they see, and to re-view their understanding of the religious symbol or artifact amounts to teaching a visual theology; a helpful and necessary challenge for the teacher of theology or religious studies.