Conversation: The challenges of teaching in a “nano department”

A panel at the 2016 American Academy of Religion conference staged, taped, transcribed, and edited this conversation about the challenges and opportunities of teaching in a “nano department” – an undergraduate religion or religious studies department (or combined religion and philosophy department) with only one, two, or three faculty members. Two things quickly become evident: one is the impossibility of coverage of the full religious studies curriculum, and the other is the necessity for collaboration with other departments. Neither of these is unique to nano departments, but there exists an intimacy between students and faculty in small departments, a necessary freedom to rethink the place of the study of religion in the liberal arts curriculum, and a disruptive value in what can be critiqued and contributed from a marginalized position. Arguably, nano departments are the canaries in the academic coal mine, charting the future of the humanities that cannot be discerned from the vantage point of Research‐1 contexts.     

注意资源、学习方式与年龄因素对协作抑制的影响

本研究在前人研究的基础上,试图探讨不同编码因素对协作抑制效应的制约作用,从协作抑制角度为挖掘集体记忆的作用机制提供证据。实验1结果发现,集中注意条件下,出现协作抑制;分配注意条件下,协作抑制消失。说明学习时注意资源的投入程度,对协作抑制有影响。实验2结果发现不同的学习方式对协作抑制的影响在不同年龄被试身上表现不同。本研究将视角聚焦于编码因素,研究结果证实,协作抑制受到不同编码因素的制约,此外,本结果亦为协作抑制的提取策略破坏假说提供了新的证据。     

学科领域知识与数学学习的知识表征研究

根据领域知识的结构特点对初中数学学科知识作出改编和重组,形成数学学科领域知识单元进行教学实验,以215名普通初中二年级学生为被试,通过自编问卷和深度访谈考察学科领域知识对知识表征的影响,并探讨了知识表征与数学学业成绩之间的关系。研究发现:(1)学科领域知识可以显著提高学生数学陈述性知识表征全面性和总体水平;(2)学科领域知识可以显著提高学生的程序性知识表征全面性、自动化、组织性和总体水平;(3)认知结构三要素、陈述性知识表征及程序性知识表征与数学成绩显著相关;(4)学优生的陈述性知识表征准确性、总体水平和程序性知识表征组织性、总体水平显著高于中等生和学困生。     

Forum: A New Culture of Learning

These brief essays by Mary Hess, Eugene Gallagher, and Katherine Turpin are solicited responses from three different contexts to the provocative book by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown, The New Culture of Learning (2011). Mary Hess writes from a seminary context, providing a critical summary of the authors' major concepts and their ramifications, positive and negative, for theological education and the church. Eugene Gallagher writes from a liberal arts setting, identifying characteristics of the face‐to‐face classroom that would go missing in a careless adoption of online learning environments. Finally, Katherine Turpin reports from the classroom, chronicling her experience in a course she redesigned for a graduate theological setting to employ some of the authors' pedagogical principles and strategies. Together, these responses offer critical appreciation and constructive critique of the work Thomas and Seely Brown have done – and point the conversation forward.     

Learning by Preparing‐to‐Teach and Teaching: A Meta‐Analysis

The present research meta‐analytically examined the effects of preparing‐to‐teach and subsequent teaching (relative to mere studying without teaching expectancy) on the acquisition of domain knowledge. The synthesis of 28 studies indicated that the estimated effect sizes (Hedges' gs) were 0.35 for preparing‐to‐teach and 0.56 for teaching with preparing‐to‐teach. Both preparing‐to‐teach and teaching with preparing‐to‐teach were effective in promoting deep learning (as well as surface learning) and even after a delay. The learning benefits of teaching with preparing‐to‐teach were larger when students expected and engaged in an interactive teaching activity than when they expected and engaged in a non‐interactive teaching activity. The mere expectation of interactive teaching also produced larger learning effects than the expectation of non‐interactive teaching. These results suggest that preparing‐to‐teach and teaching, interactive teaching after preparing to do so in particular, are useful for enhancing learning.     

Conversation with 2016 American Academy of Religion Excellence in Teaching Award Winner Joanne Maguire Robinson

This conversation between the editors of Teaching Theology and Religion and Joanne Maguire Robinson continues an occasional series of interviews that has previously featured Jonathan Z. Smith, Stephen Prothero, Mary Pierce Brosmer, and Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore. The exchange takes as its point of departure the teaching statement that Professor Robinson produced in support of her candidacy for the American Academy of Religion's Excellence in Teaching Award. Issues addressed include the impact of institutional context on one's teaching, teaching the humanities in universities that are ever more focused on job training, making the transition from a graduate program focused on research to teaching undergraduates who are unlikely to take even a second course in the study of religion, and ways in which women are challenged to navigate multiple responsibilities while striving to make their way in a male‐dominated academy.     

Testing the Adult Development Tower of Babel Hypothesis: Homogeneous by Perry Position Collaborative Learning Groups and Graduate Student Satisfaction

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to investigate what appears to be a grounding assumption in some adult developmental and educational research: persons of differing epistemologies who are grouped together will understand one another less well than persons who are grouped homogeneously. A robust effect is discussed within the context of adult development theory, research on collaborative learning groups, and Bruffee's social constructionist challenge (K. A. Bruffee, 1993) to Perry and to cognitive development theory. Collateral research questions relating to covariates of developmental position (according to the Perry scheme) are entertained; confirmatory qualitative data are presented.     

English for Bible and Theology: Understanding and Communicating Theology Across Cultural and Linguistic Barriers

This article introduces English for Bible and Theology (EBT), an inherently interdisciplinary field that merges English language learning with the content of biblical and theological studies in a context that is, by nature, cross‐cultural. Within this collaboration there exists the possibility not only to enable theological study, but also to enhance it through a focus on personal meaning and its communication, both of which are foundational to the communicative language classroom. That is, EBT seeks both to aid students worldwide in attaining the specialized language and cultural proficiency necessary to access English theological resources and to provide a community in which students can connect theological content to their lives. It is this second aim that provides EBT its relevance across a range of theological contexts, as native English‐speaking students likewise stand to benefit from the application of EBT's principles.     

Challenging Racism and White Privilege in Undergraduate Theology Contexts: Teaching and Learning Strategies for Maximizing the Promise of Community Service‐Learning

This paper explores the possibilities and challenges inherent in employing community service‐learning as a pedagogy for engaging undergraduates in theology and religious studies courses that contribute to racial reconciliation. The paper summarizes research from the scholarship of teaching and learning on best practices for structuring service‐learning projects and processes that hold the possibility of students' genuine engagement with issues of race and the wisdom of the Catholic tradition.