Twitter offers an engaging way to introduce students to reader-oriented interpretation of the Bible. The exercise described here introduces students to the idea that the reader has a role in the production of a text's meaning, which thus varies from reader to reader. Twitter enables us to capture the real-time thoughts of a variety of…

One factor contributing to success in online education is the creation of a safe and vibrant virtual community and sustained, lively engagement with that community of learners. In order to create and engage such a community instructors must pay special attention to the relationship between technology and pedagogy, specifically in terms of issues…

Order and organization are valued in the classroom, and there is a prevailing understanding that chaos should be avoided. Yet chaos can also be potent space or a source from which new things spring forth. This article investigates biblical, scientific, and cultural understandings of chaos to discover how these contribute to a revelatory metaphor…

With the general practice of online teaching still in relative infancy, nuanced approaches for teaching target populations such as black students are especially scarce. This article submits a theoretical framework for approaching the activity of teaching black students online using a transformative, postmodern pedagogy that is sensitive to black…

This article explores a set of practices in the teaching of Talmud called "the pedagogy of slowing down." Through the author's analysis of her own teaching in an intensive Talmud class, "the pedagogy of slowing down" emerges as a pedagogical and cultural model in which the students learn to read more closely and to investigate the multiplicity of…

Two troublesome portraits of religious studies professors often exist in the minds of some students at any given time: the Guru, or wise spiritual teacher, and the Deceiver. These metaphors capture student perceptions of us that may be ill-informed and beyond our control. We will examine and compare how our own chosen metaphors for…

This article begins by recognizing the increasing use of film in Religion, Theology, and Bible courses. It contends that in many Biblical Studies (and Religious Studies and Theology) courses, students are neither taught how to view films properly, nor how to place films into constructive dialogue with biblical texts. The article argues for a…

Teaching a required introductory Bible course to non-majors at a church-related college presents a number of pedagogical challenges. When considering how to teach such a course in the context of concerns common to the liberal arts, I find myself reflecting on authority. My thoughts on the teaching of this course in my own context are organized…

The student dramatic performance is an effective way for undergraduates to learn biblical studies. In this article I will give an example of a dramatic performance assignment that I developed over a number of courses and used most recently and most successfully in an undergraduate course in the Hebrew Bible at a small liberal arts college in the…

This paper presents an overview of a newly developed spectrum pedagogy of Christian ethics that emerged from the authors' experience of teaching a contemporary Christian ethics course for seven years. A spectrum pedagogy is a comprehensive approach to teaching Christian ethics that combines the modeling of key dispositions using specific tools…

This essay explores intersections among Jesuit, Quaker, and feminist theologies and pedagogies of social justice education in order to propose and elaborate an innovative theoretical and theological framework for experiential learning in religious studies that prioritizes relationality, called erotic education. This essay then applies the…

M.Div. programs sequence curriculum in order to cumulatively build competencies for wise, faithful, reflective, appropriate and effective ministerial practices. That is why the introductory preaching course typically is positioned somewhere near the middle of the program. The author of this article discovered that students who, in the semester…

The editor of "Teaching Theology and Religion" facilitated this reflective conversation with four teachers who recently moved from undergraduate institutions to seminaries and divinity schools. Three major themes emerge in the conversation: (1) developing their pedagogical craft in undergraduate settings made them better teachers in their new…

This paper explores the concept and practice of "embodied pedagogy" as an alternative to the Cartesian approach to knowledge that is tacitly embedded in traditional modes of teaching and learning about religion. My analysis highlights a class I co-teach that combines the study of Aikido (a Japanese martial art) with seminar-style discussions of…

Stephen Prothero's "Religious Literacy" makes a strong case that minimal religious literacy is an essential requirement for contemporary U. S. citizens. He argues further that high schools and colleges should offer required courses in the study of religion in order to help students reach that baseline literacy. Beyond the general recommendation…