This essay analyzes student learning through place-based pedagogies in an American Religions course. In the course, students analyzed cultural meanings and practices of regional religious communities and participated in sensory awareness and ecological learning in a campus garden. Embodied learning increased student understanding and appreciation…

The issue of comparison is a vexing one in religious and theological studies, not least for teachers of comparative religion in study abroad settings. We try to make familiar ideas fresh and strange, in settings where students may find it hard not to take "fresh" and "strange" as signs of existential threat. The author explores…

This article maintains that knowledge of the literature on multicultural education and social justice pedagogy is indispensable for white college professors who desire to teach effectively about racial justice concerns. In exploring this literature, I have noticed that many publications either articulate theory or reflect on concrete classroom…

The editor of "Teaching Theology and Religion" facilitated this reflective conversation with five teachers who have extensive experience and success teaching extremely large classes (150 students or more). In the course of the conversation these professors exchange and analyze the effectiveness of several active learning strategies they…

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…

If theological education is to prepare religious leaders who will respond faithfully and capably to ecological challenges, what models of teaching and learning will best equip them for this work? In conversation with environmental education theory and examples from diverse learning contexts, this paper proposes a model of "learning on the…

Courses about religion and the environment should work toward a synthesis of critical thinking--teaching students to examine and question the interplay of environmental degradation, religious traditions, and new religious movements--and advocacy--helping students to embrace, articulate, and refine their own environmentalist commitments, in…

Theological educators are now fostering dialogues, projects, and practices that are designed to acknowledge the challenges and opportunities resulting from the shifting racial and ethnic demographic climate in the U.S. and Canada. As well-intentioned as these efforts are, most of the scholarship focuses on the contemporary experiences of…

What is the role of biblical studies in a liberal arts curriculum? At the 2009 North American Society of Biblical Literature conference, a panel of seven Bible scholars provided brief analyses and arguments about the appropriate goals of teaching biblical studies in undergraduate contexts in this historical moment. They consider and critique the…

Established in 2000-2001, the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS) is the only master's level religious studies program at a non-religiously affiliated university in Indonesia. In many respects, the program is experimental, operating within the dynamic political and religious environment of the Muslim world's youngest and largest…

This article employs George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's work on metaphor (1980) to examine the current use of the term "learning outcomes" within higher education. It argues that "learning outcomes" is an ontological metaphor (education becomes focused on results that one can understand and measure) that resonates with contemporary academic…

This essay explores new ways of engaging diversity in the production of knowledge in the classroom using coloniality as an analytical lens. After briefly engaging some of the recent literature on coloniality, focusing on the epistemic dimension, the author uses the example of teaching a course on religion, culture, and theology, where he employs…

The Serve Program at Ignatius University combines academic study of theology with a year-long community service project focused on combating poverty. An analysis of the Serve Program during the 2008-09 academic year revealed that participating students demonstrated a significant increase in their interest in theology; a greater desire to enroll in…

In this edited transcript of a panel at the Society of Biblical Literature (November 23, 2009, Boston, Massachusetts), five Bible scholars give brief presentations on various challenges and opportunities encountered when teaching academic biblical studies courses online in both undergraduate and theological education contexts. Each presentation is…

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…