Scholarship on Teaching

The article discusses two versions of a complex role‚Äêplaying exercise in undergraduate courses on Buddhism. The pedagogical exercise demonstrated how imagination cultivated through creative writing could be used to enhance learning about history, culture, and religion. Students were also challenged to generate an understanding of religious practice that arose from both cognitive and sensory learning. The project showed that by interacting with a form of engaged pedagogy that worked with the imagination, without leaving the classroom students developed a deep care for and active engagement with communities located spatially and temporally far from home. With empathy and critical reflection, they came to see how religious meaning is constructed at a communal level through embodied action and emotional sensibility.

This article considers the “create your own religion” or “fictive religion” assignment as a pedagogical tool, contextualizing it within the scholarship of teaching and learning, and positioning it as a tool for broad adoption in a variety of courses. I argue that we ought to conceptualize the fictive religion assignment as an instructional game, and make use of scholarship on teaching through games as a foundation for my analysis. While I offer the example of my own fictive religion assignment as a case study, the overall argument is a theoretical one, namely that the assignment works because of the nature of games.

This essay provides a brief overview of an educational board game developed by the author for use in upper division Old Testament classes. The game, extending in stages across the semester, heightens student learning by requiring strategic thinking about various historical, political, and geographical relationships. Appendices and links to online material provide full details necessary to adapt the game in local classrooms.

The issue is richly augmented by a set of teaching tactics (Allen, Ghosh, and Woodard and Mabry) across a range of religious traditions which briefly describe further practices that can be productive in the classroom.

The issue is richly augmented by a set of teaching tactics (Allen, Ghosh, and Woodard and Mabry) across a range of religious traditions which briefly describe further practices that can be productive in the classroom.

The issue is richly augmented by a set of teaching tactics (Allen, Ghosh, and Woodard and Mabry) across a range of religious traditions which briefly describe further practices that can be productive in the classroom.

In the undergraduate classroom, tabletop games can aid both teaching and learning – especially when accompanied by debriefing exercises following gameplay. In particular, tabletop games enable undergraduate learners to practice the 21st century skills of collaboration, communication, and critical thinking. This qualitative study examines three cases from the disciplines of practical theology, systematic theology, and history, utilizing the methods of classroom video recordings, written assessments from students and professors, and student debriefing exercises. In this study, undergraduate students (n = 46) and undergraduate professors (n = 3) reflect upon and self‐report their experience playing tabletop games in the classroom. Students and professors report that tabletop gameplay appears to intensify active learning, classroom engagement, and student motivation – a powerful blend for the retention of course content.

Role‚Äêplaying games have been a part of scholarly conversations about pedagogy for several decades. However, more work is needed in understanding how gaming pedagogy can best fit with and augment particular disciplines. After providing two examples of role‚Äêplaying games that have been used successfully in teaching the New Testament, this article argues that role‚Äêplaying games contribute to theological and religious studies classrooms by forming positive values (e.g. openness to multiple viewpoints, civility, and empathy) and assisting students in integrating their faith and learning. Because of the low‚Äêrisk settings that games provide, students can practice skills that increase their achievement of learning outcomes and contribute to their value formation and faith formation.

Games offer unique possibilities for learning, and text‐based interactive fiction (“IF”) in particular lends itself as a low barrier to entry for instructors and students wishing to build interactive narrative games. Understanding by Design provides a framework by which to determine the best possible places for instructor‐ and learner‐built IF in any given course, whether face‐to‐face or online. A thick description of how an instructor conceived and developed two IF games follows, explicitly tied to course‐design considerations like learning goals and assessment performances. The value of IF as a student project is explored, and finally an appendix provides resources for instructors and students to begin building their own interactive fiction.