The Scholarship of Teaching in Theology and Religion: A Wabash Center Advisory Committee Conversation

The article is a reflection on what I perceive to be a confusion about the relation between theoretical judgments and judgments of pedagogical efficacy. My interest in the issue originated with my own confusion over persistent student resistance to certain assigned texts that I had initially felt confident would prove valuable in the classroom. The essay unfolds in three segments. In the first, I recount how this concern about the relation between theoretical judgments and judgments of pedagogical efficacy evolved out of my own teaching. I next list three tentative conclusions about the correlation or lack of correlation between theoretical judgments and judgments of pedagogical efficacy. In the concluding segment, I call for concerted resistance to the tendency of pure rationality to colonize the aesthetic and dramatic components of experience so essential to transformative teaching and learning.     

The Creation of the Wabash Center Internet Guide

SUMMARY

This article describes the process through which the Wabash Center Guide to Internet resources in religion was conceived and developed. The resulting structure of the Guide is described, and comments are made concerning possible ways in which the Internet can contribute to the learning process in theology and religious studies. A vision for the future of this Guide or other similar efforts is also outlined.     

2010 Working Bibliography of Teaching and Learning Publications and Presentations related to the Work of the Wabash Center by Wabash Center Participants and Grant Recipients

This bibliography lists articles and books on teaching produced by workshop participants and grant recipients of the Wabash Center. It updates a similar list produced in 2007 and published in volume 10 number 3 of this journal.     

Lucinda Huffaker and the Hospitality of the Wabash Center

Abstract. As associate director and then director of the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, Lucinda Huffaker has been a key factor in the Center's reputation for hospitality. The Center's work presupposes that reflection on teaching improves teaching and learning, and good reflection on one's teaching requires taking risks and making oneself vulnerable. Hospitality helps create a “safe space” that encourages such risks, even in the current inhospitable academic world, where factors like competitiveness and the increasing use of adjuncts make honest reflection on teaching difficult.     

Hospes: The Wabash Center as a Site of Transformative Hospitality

Abstract. The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion is a place of hospitality and its staff the epitome of the “good host.” This essay explores the meaning of hospitality, including its problematic dimensions, drawing on a number of voices and texts: Jacques Derrida's Of Hospitality; Henri M. Nouwen's Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, N. Lynne Westfield's Dear Sisters: A Womanist Practice of Hospitality, Arthur Sutherland's I Was a Stranger: A Christian Theology of Hospitality, and Kathleen Norris's “Hospitality.” Beginning with the claim that hospitality is concerned with power and grace, the essay explores the relationship between hospitality and teaching, and the modes by which the Wabash Center helps teachers both find their identities and heal.     

Midrange Reflection: The Underlying Practice of Wabash Center Workshops,Colloquies, and Consultations

Abstract. This article argues that the primary intellectual embodiment of the Wabash Center's ethos of hospitality is a particular kind of reflection on teaching and learning, “midrange reflection.” It defines and describes midrange reflection and then discusses the two essential skills required to facilitate it as distinct from other types of reflection and discussion: (1) the ability to identify issues in the life of a learning community, and (2) the ability to design sequences of questions and intellectual activities that promote reflection on those issues. As the underlying, if not defining practice of Wabash Center workshops, colloquies, and consultations, midrange reflection is crucial to the significant learning that occurs in Wabash Center programs and to participants’ ability to take their deeper understanding and insights back into their classrooms and professional lives.     

Teaching the Devout Student: Faith and Scholarship in the Classroom

Increasing numbers of college students enrolling in religion courses in recent years are looking to develop their religious faith or spirituality, while professors of religion want students to use and appreciate scholarly tools to study religion from an academic perspective. Some scholars argue that it is not possible to satisfy both goals in the classroom, while authors in this journal have given suggestions on how to bridge the gap between faith and scholarship. I argue that such authors are correct and that, in my experience, historical‐critical methods can help devout students understand the original texts in their own religion better, comprehend why changes in interpretation have occurred over time, and appreciate the values in religions other than their own. Not all devout students are comfortable with an academic study of religion, but many can attain a more mature faith by such an approach.     

Sketching the Contours of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion

This article argues that there is an identifiable scholarship of teaching and learning in theology and religion that, though varied in its entry points and forms, exhibits standards of excellence recognizable in other forms of scholarship. Engaging in this scholarship enhances a professor's possession of practice and often reveals insights into student learning and the contours of a field that can advance both educational and disciplinary projects. Through conversation with a form of the scholarship of teaching and learning that emerged most clearly in work associated with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, we describe starting points and generative assumptions that have been employed in the discourse of the scholarship of teaching and learning in theology and religion as they have emerged in submissions to Teaching Theology and Religion over the past decade and a half and point to its benefits. See responses to this essay by Charles R. Foster , Stephen Brookfield , and Pat Hutchings published in this issue of the journal. Responses by Reid B. Locklin, Joanne Maguire Robinson, and Nadine S. Pence appear in next issue issue, 16:3 (2013).     

The New Scholarship on Women

Biklen, S.K., & Dwyer, C. (Eds.). (1986). The new scholarship on women in education [Special issue]. Educational Researcher, 15(6). McHugh, M.C., Koeske, R.D., & Frieze, I.H. (1986). Issues to consider in conducting nonsexist psychological research. American Psychologist, 41, 879–890.     

Experiential Learning and Social Justice Action: An Experiment in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Abstract. This essay discusses the process and findings of an experiment on the scholarship of teaching and learning conducted in a religious ethics classroom that utilized an experiential approach to teaching and learning about social justice. The first part lays out the focus of the investigation and the pedagogical principles drawn from experiential learning theory that provided the foundation for the experiment. The second part describes all of the components of the pedagogical strategy used in the experiment, the social justice action project. The third part discusses the qualitative methodology used to gather evidence and the findings drawn from that evidence. What the evidence shows is that an experiential approach to teaching and learning about social justice can be quite effective. The essay concludes with discussions of areas for further study and the implications for the practice of others. (The survey described in this article can be found on the Wabash Center Web site〈 http://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/journal/glennon.html 〉).     

中国西学研究传统中的古希腊哲学

古希腊哲学在中国学术界的地位,除了依赖于学者们的具体研究水平之外,还取决于中国学者对西学的整体把握。在过去,中国学界是以马克思主义的三个来源思路来分割西学的各个学科的。现在,我们更多从现代性的发生来理解整个西学体系。目前,我们尚需要借助西方学者的研究思路,建立中国西学体系中的古希腊哲学研究。