Practicing Teaching to Transgress

One of four short essays published in this issue of the journal to celebrate the 25th anniversary of bell hooks's classic book, Teaching to Transgress (1994). The authors reflect on the importance of this text for their teaching, when they discovered it, and how it has shaped their approach to the classroom, as illustrated in a particular teaching strategy or assignment that they have used that is inspired by the book.     

Transformation,fear, and freedom in Teaching to Transgress

One of four short essays published in this issue of the journal to celebrate the 25th anniversary of bell hooks's classic text book, Teaching to Transgress (1994). The authors reflect on the importance of this text for their teaching, when they discovered it, and how it has shaped their approach to the classroom, as illustrated in a particular teaching strategy or assignment that they have used that is inspired by the book.     

Love transgresses: Reflections at 25 years

One of four short essays published in this issue of the journal to celebrate the 25th anniversary of bell hooks's classic book, Teaching to Transgress (1994). The authors reflect on the importance of this text for their teaching, when they discovered it, and how it has shaped their approach to the classroom, as illustrated in a particular teaching strategy or assignment that they have used that is inspired by the book.     

The learning community: An essential for education as the practice of freedom

One of four short essays published in this issue of the journal to celebrate the 25th anniversary of bell hooks's classic book, Teaching to Transgress (1994). The authors reflect on the importance of this text for their teaching, when they discovered it, and how it has shaped their approach to the classroom, as illustrated in a particular teaching strategy or assignment that they have used that is inspired by the book.     

World religion and fake news: A pedagogical response in an age of post‐truth

This article describes a pedagogical response to teaching world religions courses in a post‐truth age. The course assignment and its application, utilized in both online and in‐person formats, bridge student academic pursuits with religious traditions, require students to engage with source‐based journalism, and extend beyond the classroom into many of the contemporary politics encroaching upon the humanities fields. Related to the first, the objective of the assignment is for students to discover that religiosity permeates multiple sectors, both private and public, corresponding with student career paths. As a result, students discover that religion is relevant to their academic pursuits and that they must consider the possibilities of how religion might integrate with their career choices. Regarding the second objective, the assignment develops student digital media literacy skills as a form of civic education that challenges the current political attacks on journalism and factuality. Last, this exercise acknowledges the realities facing many humanities programs across the country and offers this assignment as a way of engaging with those issues within the classroom. See as well, published in this issue of the journal, three short companion essays by Sarah L. Schwarz, Jonathan R. Herman, and Harshita Mruthinti Kamath, each of which analyzes this pedagogical strategy for their particular teaching contexts.     

Teaching about Religion with Food

Abstract. This article presents a particular teaching strategy that involves using food playfully in the classroom in order to change the mood, generate different forms of learning, and prod students to connect food and religion. I offer a rationale for teaching with food, then provide an application from a university course on Gnosticism. My goal is to encourage college and university teachers of religion to take food, and play, more seriously in their teaching.     

Embodied learning: Teaching sexuality and religion to a changing student body

Sexuality, more so than other subject areas, magnifies the embodied nature of teaching and learning as well as conspicuously silences open dialogue given its taboo status in many religious and theological contexts. Yet, student learning about sexuality that incorporates knowledge of and about religion, in particular, may greatly improve the public discourse about sexuality through our students as responsible citizens and as leaders in their chosen professions. To bridge this gap, through a year‐long collaboration, a group of professors and instructors with expertise and experience teaching sexuality and religion in a variety of disciplines and diverse institutional and religious contexts developed, tested, and refined classroom teaching strategies to shift from a content‐based “subject matter” to an embodied learning experience, resulting in perspective transformation as a primary student‐learning outcome. Findings in the form of “guiding questions,” encourage instructors to attend to contextual, experiential, and performative aspects of the classroom environment.     

The Teacher's Career and Life

Abstract. Participants in a Wabash Center consultation on vocation discussed the variety of expectations, opportunities, and challenges that create contexts for teaching as they move through careers. These essays emerge from the experiences and reflections of four participants about different stages of careers in diverse contexts. Tom Massaro writes from the perspective of one who recently navigated the challenges leading up to the tenure review in a Jesuit theological school and notes common patterns amidst the diversity of challenges. Phyllis Airhart ponders vocational fidelity in the transitions to new roles and responsibilities at mid‐career in a Canadian university. Barbara Brown Zikmund deals with what she calls the ‘mature years’ and traces a major shift in her career from administration in an American school to teaching in Japan. Raymond Williams reflects on vocation during the process of preparing for retirement from teaching in a liberal arts college, attempting to respond faithfully to the inevitable question, ‘What are you going to do when you retire?’ Vocation is a thread that runs through each essay as reflection on the integrity and continuity of careers. The authors raise issues and make suggestions that may help others reflect on their vocation as teacher.     

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.     

Bridging the Void: New Interpretations of Christian Mysticism and Mystical Theology

There is currently a welcome intensification of interest in the contemporary theological significance of both historical traditions of mystical theology and twentieth‐century theories of mysticism. This review article surveys and evaluates the stimulating range of approaches to these two issues contained in the essays in these volumes. It suggests that the volumes make evident the difficulty of attempting to uncover an underlying conceptual unity in these two historically entangled but deeply different forms of thought. The historical and philosophical sophistication with which many of these essays reflect on these tensions, however, points towards fruitful lines of future enquiry.     

School track and ethnic classroom composition relate to the mainstream identity of adolescents with immigrant background in Germany,but not their ethnic identity

Although developing a cultural identity is a core task for adolescents from immigrant families and the school is a highly important context in adolescence, to date, few studies have examined whether adolescents with particular cultural identities cluster in certain school contexts. Using data from a representative German sample including 7702 secondary school students of immigrant background from 1643 classrooms, we examined how the attended school track and four aspects of ethnic classroom composition relate to adolescents' cultural identity (i.e., their ethnic identity and mainstream identity). Two-level structural equation models indicated that students' ethnic identity was not systematically associated with the attended school track and the ethnic composition of the classroom. However, attending the academic school track, a classroom with a low proportion of classmates with immigrant background and frequently using German with classmates related positively to mainstream identity. Ethnic diversity and proportion of co-ethnics in class did not relate to mainstream identification. Our findings suggest that the ethnic identity of adolescents with an immigrant background in Germany is largely independent from the different socialisation contexts related to school tracks and the ethnic classroom composition. Yet, students' with a strong mainstream identity cluster in certain school contexts.     

“Talking Race” in the College Classroom: The Role of Social Structures and Social Factors in Race Pedagogy

This article examines the role of race in the college classroom. Two types of college institutions in which the author has had personal teaching experience are examined. It is argued that educators should tailor a particular pedagogy on the basis of the unique contexts in which they teach. Este artículo examina el rol que tiene la raza en la clase universitaria. Se analisan dos tipos de instituciones universitarias en las cuales el autor ha tenido experiencia pedagógica. El planteamiento es que los instructores deben adaptar una pedagogía a base de los contextos particulares en los que enseñan.     

The Classroom as a Place of Formation: Purposefully Creating a Transformative Environment for Today's Diverse Seminary Population

Abstract. This essay draws on insights from studies on learning to explore the role of formation in the classroom. Studies of intellectual development, learning styles, and the physiology of learning are reviewed. Methodologies and models for encouraging formative learning in seminary classrooms are explored. This essay was written to address one of the issues that have focused the attention of the participants in the Lexington Seminar on Theological Teaching for the Church's Ministries, a project sponsored by Lexington Theological Seminary and supported by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. It will be included in Practical Wisdom: On Theological Teaching and Learning, edited by Malcolm L. Warford, a collection of essays intended to (1) affirm the teaching ministry of theological educators, (2) raise up and discern the diverse ways in which issues of teaching and learning present themselves in institutional contexts, (3) evoke new perspectives on the challenges facing individual schools, and (4) encourage faculty to make conversations about teaching and learning a crucial part of faculty life. Peter Lang Publishing will release the book in fall 2004. Additional information about the work of the Lexington Seminar is available on the Lexington Seminar's Web site < http://www.lexingtonseminar.org/ >.     

Pedagogy as a Field Guide to the Ecology of the Classroom

Reflecting on the complementary pedagogical models on teaching courses related to religion and the environment presented in this issue of the journal by Kevin O'Brien (“Balancing Critique and Commitment”) and Jennifer Ayres (“Learning on the Ground”), I suggest ways in which these essays form a conversation about teaching. Together, O'Brien and Ayres show how the classroom must acknowledge the materiality and embodied nature of learning, the emotional and intellectual levels of commitment, and the place of critical reflection on our everyday practices and actions. O'Brien and Ayres show the benefits of more fully reflecting on the ecology of the classroom – the relationship between individual members of the educational community, and the educational environment itself – in religious studies and theology.     

不同经验教师对学生课堂行为加工的眼动研究

教师对课堂信息的知觉和加工是教师教学能力和教学专长发展的重要组成部分。以往有关课堂场景中学生行为知觉和注意的研究主要采用问卷调查、主观报告和定性分析等研究方式,不仅缺乏对学生课堂问题行为客观量化的分析,对教师如何加工课堂场景中学生行为也研究较少。本研究选取11名专家、9名经验教师和17名新手,让其观看一段时长约15秒的小学数学课堂教学视频,并记录其观看过程中的眼动信息。结果发现,教师对学生课堂典型行为的注视次数和注视次数比率多于问题行为;相对于专家和经验教师,新手对学生的典型课堂行为注视次数更多、总注视时间更长、注视比率更大;就学生的典型行为而言,新手比专家和经验教师注视的次数更多、总注视时间更长,注视的比率也更大。结论认为,教学经验会影响教师对课堂教学场景中学生行为信息的知觉,新手对突显的典型行为关注要多于问题行为,而专家和经验教师则在典型行为和问题行为上平均分配注意资源。     

Combining trait consistency and learning specificity approaches to personality,with illustrative data on faculty teaching performance

Data on personality and teaching performance in university professors are brought to bear on the debate about the consistency of social behaviour. We argue: (a) that traits can best be inferred by sampling from a domain of specific acts and then aggregating across them to gain a representative composite; and (b) that the modification of behaviour largely represents the alteration of specific acts. In particular, we report data showing: (a) that extraversion correlates 0.51 with teaching effectiveness; (b) that this relationship is mediated by specific classroom behaviours; (c) that extraversion correlates 0.33 (on average) with single teaching behaviours, as compared to 0.50 with an aggregate of behaviours; and (d) that training on specific classroom behaviours improves teaching effectiveness. We conclude that both consistency and specificity exist in behaviour and that each provides a useful focus for analysis. Schematic models representing different levels of explanation are provided.     

课堂目标导向对学习成功感的影响研究

该研究以成就目标理论为指导,实证探索不同课堂目标导向对学习成功感的影响。以170名初二学生为被试,在数学课上通过不同的目标导向教学,创造出不同的目标情境,即课堂掌握目标情境、课堂成绩-趋近目标情境和课堂结合目标情境,以研究不同课堂目标导向对学生学习成功感的影响。结果表明:(1)在课堂上创造不同的目标情境具有可行性和重要性;(2)教学干预后,三个实验班学习成功感显著高于对照班;(3)经过教学干预,三个实验班学习成功感有显著提高,而对照班学习成功感前后测无显著差异。研究表明三种课堂目标情境均有助于提高学习成功感。从总体上看,研究的结果支持多重目标理论。     

Adventist Perspectives on Faith Integration: Subject Index for Christ in the Classroom,Volumes 21–40

Abstract

This article presents a bibliography of essays from the Christ in the Classroom collection, organized by subject. The essays focus on various aspects of the intersection of faith and academic fields of study. This article presents the subject index for volumes 21 through 40 of the collection, including volumes produced in the French, Portuguese, and Spanish languages. The index for volumes 1–20 was printed in 2017. All essays listed here are freely available for download at http://ChristInTheClassroom.org/.     

Teaching World Religions without Teaching “World Religions”

Tomoko Masuzawa and a number of other contemporary scholars have recently problematized the categories of “religion” and “world religions” and, in some cases, called for its abandonment altogether as a discipline of scholarly study. In this collaborative essay, we respond to this critique by highlighting three attempts to teach world religions without teaching “world religions.” That is, we attempt to promote student engagement with the empirical study of a plurality of religious traditions without engaging in the rhetoric of pluralism or the reification of the category “religion.” The first two essays focus on topical courses taught at the undergraduate level in self‐consciously Christian settings: the online course “Women and Religion” at Georgian Court University and the service‐learning course “Interreligious Dialogue and Practice” at St. Michael's College, in the University of Toronto. The final essay discusses the integration of texts and traditions from diverse traditions into the graduate theology curriculum more broadly, in this case at Loyola Marymount University. Such confessional settings can, we suggest, offer particularly suitable – if somewhat counter‐intuitive – contexts for bringing the otherwise covert agendas of the world religions discourse to light and subjecting them to a searching inquiry in the religion classroom.