kata ta biblia

a blog exploring Christian origins, biblical studies, social/cultural history, method, education and the journey through academia

Category: teaching

Facilitating an online course on biblical interpretation

A few weeks ago, I was approached by the Brethren in Christ Equipping for Ministry Team about an opportunity with a course in their Directed Study Program (DSP). They asked me whether I would consider facilitating their course, “Biblical Interpretation,” which is a required course in their program working towards a certificate with the denomination. The DSP is a program of online courses designed for those in the Brethren in Christ church (some in professional ministry, others not) who don’t necessarily have easy access to theological education.

Since facilitating the course is not a heavy load–there are no more than 15 students at a time–it would not get in the way of my primary academic duties of preparing for comprehensive exams and digging into my research topic. But it would give me the opportunity to get to use my training to help guide students through sticky hermeneutical problems. And I could stay connected to the Brethren in Christ church–one of my two denominational memberships (along with Mennonite) and the founding denomination of my undergraduate alma mater. With all of this and more in mind, I accepted the role.

I will be facilitating the online course as it is currently designed while also working to redesign the course. That latter role means that I will come up with a new syllabus, including more guidance than typical for an in-person classroom class, and new readings.

Designing this sort of course will be a bit of a challenge. The students will have taken “Bible Survey” before the class, but not a host of biblical studies courses before reaching “Biblical Interpretation.” It needs to be aimed at about a first-year undergraduate level, while also challenging students to reflect upon and interact with some very complicated topics (trying not to water them down). Also, the course is a mixture of basic elements from what one might find in an introduction to biblical studies course (literary features, historical context), a biblical exegesis course (the “nuts and bolts” of exegesis), and a biblical hermeneutics course (a little bit of theory on the perspectives behind interpretative methods) — all the while addressing concerns specific to a Brethren in Christ perspective (Anabaptist, Pietist, and Wesleyan). That’s a lot for one online course to juggle.

So, considering those challenges, what books would you use to design such a course? What are your favorites on hermeneutics and/or exegesis, or even simply the basic tools of biblical studies?

Have you ever taken a similar course? Wish you could take a course like this? What did you, or would you, appreciate most about a course  like this?

By the way, in case you’re wondering, the Brethren in Christ church is not tied down by either of the terms “inerrancy” or even “infallibility.” Also, theirs is a hermeneutic focused more on praxis (“obedience”) than proper doctrine.

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End of the Fall Quarter

Well, I survived another challenging quarter. This was my first one as a Teaching Assistant at UCLA and it took some getting used to balancing teaching responsibilities, my own research, and family life. Teaching took the bulk of my time this quarter. Though I know this is a life long struggle for academics, I will be trying some tricks as time goes by for better balancing.

Aside from the time management challenge, teaching Western Civ this quarter was a fulfilling experience. I had a great bunch of students who asked interesting questions and offered creative insights when reading ancient texts. And it was, of course, a great learning experience for me to think synthetically about a vast span of history. Puts things in perspective. I’m looking forward to doing the same class with a different professor next quarter, since it will have some continuity but also allow for filling in a few gaps that the other class didn’t cover.

I finished up a paper for the end of the quarter in Bartchy’s Paul of Tarsus seminar. I decided to do Paul and empire, then I narrowed down into First Thessalonians. I did some work with social identity in First Thessalonians, as well as imperialism and eschatology. That, too, was a learning experience. I feel like I’m an archaeologist on a long, tedious dig. Each paper reveals a little tiny bit more that I hadn’t noticed before. I really appreciate the way Douglas Campbell put it in his recent tome: “And as I began to try to write, a frustrating experience began to unfold — repeatedly. I would begin to articulate my concerns as best I could, painfully compose a chapter or two of prose, and then the argument would break down. It was as if a wave would run each time a little further up the beach before it would break — which it always did — and run back to sea” (xxv). Not that I presume to be writing something something of the magnitude of Campbell’s work, but the dissertation I have in mind has to deal with some very nebulous concepts and methods. It’s a very slow process trying to get a handle on them.

Next quarter, I’ll be doing a graduate seminar with Ronald Mellor on Roman Religion. That should be a fun class with all my colleagues in the ancient field at UCLA (many of us are TAing together) and a couple other Bartchy students. I’ve been getting interested in exploring voluntary associations, so I think I might do a paper in that area for Mellor’s seminar. I’m gearing up for it by reading Philip Harland‘s new book, kindly sent along to me by T & T Clark for review (Thanks, Abby!!).

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You Have 50 Minutes to Teach about Hebrew Civilization and the Origins of Judaism. Go.

Coming this January, at a UCLA campus near you (or not so near, as the case may be), I will be presenting a lecture on Hebrew Civilization and Second Temple Judaism within the context of the course “Introduction to Western Civilization: Ancient Civilizations, Prehistory to Circa A.D. 843.” I will be TAing for two sections of twenty each for this course, but this lecture will be for the entire 300-something student class.

So, what would you like the bright and impressionable young minds of UCLA to know about the rise of Hebrew civilization, the history of Israel, the exile, the origins of Judaism, and the Hebrew Bible based upon a 50 minute presentation?

Remember that this is in the context of the broad sweep of ancient history, serving as the foundations for something nebulous called “Western civilization.” The course is unofficially known as “From Caveman to Charlemagne.” The lecture in the class meeting prior to mine is on “Egypt in the New Kingdom; The Mesopotamian Kingdoms,” while the one after is “Minoans, Phoenicians; The End of International Bronze Age (Troy).” We will have already read Hammurabi, Gilgamesh, and The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant. They will be responsible for reading the Book of Exodus the week of my lecture. The only other biblical document they will be reading is the Gospel of Matthew several weeks later.

I have some of my own ideas, of course, but I’d like to hear what others would choose to highlight with such a brief opportunity to cover such an important topic.

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Teaching Assistant Orientation: The End of Anxiety?

Today was TA orientation for the History Department. It was definitely worth the while. Of course, we learned about our resources and who we should contact about whatever issue . . .

“And don’t forget to fill out those purple forms so that you can see your roster on MyUCLA. Talk to Hubert about any computer hardware things. Did we mention the purple forms? We’re going to get some sample syllabi on the grad student intranet for you. By the way, we have these purple forms that are really important. You will find the purple forms in your TA mailbox.”

But we also discussed strategies for creating syllabuses and lesson plans and the sort of demeanor you should offer in your first day of classes. The person teaching us suggested that she had to compensate for assumptions people made about her because of her size (she’s not tall). So, she had to assert her authority in a dramatic way from the get-go. I have been talking to a lot of people about that first day strategy lately. For me, I will certainly make myself clear about consequences, but I would like to emphasize the importance for discussion (it is a discussion section, after all). I’m trying to come up with as many methods as possible to get the conversation flowing.

In the orientation session, we held a little microteaching session with four volunteers. They were to do the first five minutes of their classroom. I found that really helpful, but in deciding what might be best for me and what I don’t want to do. One gentleman did very well, except that I found him quite threatening. As in, he started right off the bat about rule breaking, he waved his pointer finger around while talking sternly, and even held a body stance that said to me, “If you disobey me, I will cut you — after I knock your head off.”

Another person announced his “no electronics” policy, but offered a friendly “because those aren’t why we are here after all.” A little misdirection, like magic! One volunteer was fabulous with humor, but could have taken the speed of speech and gestures down a notch.

I’m leaning on my experiences preaching and leading small group discussions over the years to bring me home this quarter. If I’m honest, I do feel some jitters, but when I think about my lesson plan (we’re going to warm things up with the vision of Perpetua!) I get excited about teaching. This should be fun. Stay tuned.

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Student Excuses in the Digital Age

This is an interesting phenomenon. It’s the night before the final exam. As it nears midnight, I receive two emails frantically distributed to the entire lecture course for “History of Early Christians”–the class for which I am a reader (that is, a grader). That’s an email plea to about 120 people.

The first student says that his computer “blue-screened” him. So, he can’t get the study guide that he has been preparing for the last few days, nor his notes for the class. The second email contained an explanation of how his flash drive was stolen from the computer lab earlier today. Normally, he sends an email to himself with the files for a backup, but alas, this time he did not. Both acknowledge how hard many of the other students have worked and how unfair it seems to send their hard work along. But they both ask for understanding and look for empathy: “I wish you would put yourself in my situation.”

Who am I to judge whether these apparently otherwise responsible and capable students have really just hit a snag at a very inconvenient moment? After all, I don’t have Sylar’s new ability from this past week (does that work for emails?). It all seems very suspicious to me, though. And I’m inclined to say, “Well, you’ve studied on these things for days. Go with the hard work you’ve already put into it. With that much hard work, you must remember something.” But the reality is, with 120 other students, you’re going to get a few generous people who will indeed share their hard work.

Even if these pleas are both hoaxes, they will probably be successful. Trouble is, how will they know whether the study guides they receive are reliable?

I’d be interested to know what professors do these days with the various digital excuses that come their way. Do tell.

Update (12/11/08): Another student sent the following satire to the class:

I totally did not do any of the work this quarter.  I just watched tv and went to the movies.  i guess i am just lazy, or incompetent.   i didnt read anything except cracked.com‘s top ten most underated smurfs.  Please find it in your heart of hearts to send me your complete study guide with all of the answers you tirelessly worked on for hours.  I totally don’t do this every quarter in every class.  i know its asking a lot but…

What would jesus do?

cmon seriously. I voted for Barack Obama! and against Prop 8!!

turn my water into wine.

a fellow Christian Classmate

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Do you know of any biblioblogs that . . . ?

A friend of mine asked this question:

Pat, do you know of any biblioblogs that deal particularly with…

1) teaching biblical studies in general
2) using tech in biblical studies ed (e.g. class wikis, PPT, Blackboard, etc.)

?

So, I put the question to you all. What do you think? My friend is especially interesting in Hebrew Bible and ANE stuff, I think. But it sounds like he’s open to broader topics in biblical studies too.

Doing a quick search of biblioblogs (or biblicablogs, if you prefer) on the words “pedagogy,” “education,” “teaching” and the like (especially combined with “tech” or “technology” or one of the specifics he mentioned), as well as leaning on my gut, here are some possibilities coming to mind (in no particular order):

Any corrections or additions?

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Tired Teacher vs. Aspiring Teacher

Here’s an interesting story of an associate professor of philosophy who got tired of his job and decided to take a two year leave of absence to join the Peace Corps, teaching English in China. I read these articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education written by people having trouble with their academic jobs and sometimes I have to take time to reflect on whether it is what I really want to do. I feel that this one doesn’t apply for me because, well, in the first place I would hate to teach philosophy too, especially at a school that doesn’t have a philosophy major. But he says:

Because, in truth, I have never been very comfortable with teaching. A natural introvert, I am much more at home in the library than in the lecture hall and find the classroom more exhausting than rewarding.

I do lean slightly towards the introvert side, but usually only with new people and then usually only in foreign environments. I do get energized when I speak in front of groups, large or small. Teaching college students is something that I anticipate with great excitement. I can’t wait to interact with and mentor college students when it comes to the difficult issues surrounding their relationship with the biblical text. In a post entitled “The Make-up of a College Prof,” Scot McKnight talks about what makes a good college professor, as opposed to a seminary professor:

I once said the difference between seminary teaching and college teaching was that in seminary we teach our subject but in college we teach students. I don’t think this says it all, and I do think it can mask a false dichotomy, but it was my experience. Sometimes I think it wouldn’t matter one bit what I was asked to teach at the college level, because I’d have to figure out where the students where and who they were and then just get into the mix with a subject and start moving onward.

I long to be on the other end of this educational journey and be able to be experience what McKnight describes here. I guess what I’m saying is that while I find this philosophy professor’s predicament interesting, I’m not sure I can imagine myself going through the same crisis 20 years down the road. I guess we shall see!

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Teach with vulnerability over demolition

I’ve been perusing the most recent edition of Religious Studies News, the newspaper put out by AAR, and it has some excellent material. They have helpfully shared results to the EIS employment survey, and there are two special sections, “Focus on Getting Published” and the “Spotlight on Theological Education.” You can find the issue online here. Currently they don’t have the “Spotlight on Theological Education” available for viewing online, but I have contacted the editor and he has indicated that they will be posting it online either today or tomorrow.

I’d like to highlight an article in the “Spotlight on Theological Education” written by one of my Fuller professors, Jim Butler. In the article, “Teaching and Learning Scripture as if We Remember Why We Cared about It in the First Place,” Butler challenges the iconoclastic instincts that most professors have in regards to biblical studies. Since the professors (rightfully) see that their students have so much to “unlearn” about the Bible, they take it upon themselves to dismantle and destroy those cherished, but misplaced beliefs. Butler sees this approach as detrimental, and not likely to produce fruitful results:

But as I look back over 30 years of teaching I recognize how often such therapeutic “demolition” has unintended consequences. Some students, usually those of a more academic bent, are quickly won over to their professors’ perspective, and begin to acquire the critical tools that will distance them from the cultural womb that produced them. Others will buy into the educational process enough to gain a patina of sophistication, but, faced with the demands and predilections of the theological consumer culture, they will put together the nuts and bolts of their eventual practice in ways that are largely unaffected by their professors’ insights. Finally, a few others simply will become cynical about theological education, get the required degree, and then quite intentionally fulfill their professors’ worst fears by embracing and cultivating values that are now “battle hardened” against wool-gathering academics.

Butler’s approach to teaching (and I’ve experienced it) is more gentle. He suggests that the theological educator needs to develop the skill “to recognize and to imaginatively attend to the nexus of cultures confronting our students — the culture of their earlier formation and the culture of their anticipated vocational service.” In other words, professors should be more attentive to the situations of their students. He says that he’s also found that students are more likely to share these situations with him if he is “vulnerable enough to share my own path with them at times.” This is essentially giving he students the benefit of the doubt. Rather than talk down to students as if everything they believe is wrong (that’s my phraseology), educators should let the students know that they are in “common cause” with them. And if educators do this, respecting where the students have been and where they are going, the students “will often be more severe in their critique of poor theology than we could be, and more creative in finding constructive and hopeful alternatives.”

I think that Jim’s article is wonderful and true. I would like to add a caveat, however. I think that it is wonderful and true particularly with survey courses, and then, only with a certain portion (perhaps the majority) of the class. In my undergraduate education as a Bible major, in my opinion, we had a rather heavy emphasis on iconoclasm. And though I was a fundamentalist going into college (holding to the kinds of views that my professors would want to rid their students of), iconoclasm was just what the doctor ordered. I fit into that first category of students of a “more academic bent.” I think many Bible majors were won over to the perspective of our professors. I know of only one that held out as a staunch inerrantist to the end (from my class anyway).

So you might say that, for me, the damage was already done. When I came into Fuller, I was actually surprised at how gentle the teaching was. Compared to my earlier experience, it appeared that professors at Fuller were light on the demolition. They told more stories about how they came to their points of view and how they struggled with them. Before taking my first class with Jim, many people told me that he was “pastoral.” That turned out to be true. I looked on while he helped the students wrestle with theological issues related to, say, the authorship of the Pentateuch or the historicity of the exodus account. For me, though, it was an interesting lesson in how to interact with students, a lesson on education, rather than a lesson on the Pentateuch. I had already dealt with these issues.

What I see, then, is a choice. Educators have to choose which student to direct their approach towards. Will it be the “more academic” ones (not quite as “pastoral”) or will it be the ones in the middle, who are interested but not sucked in as easily (more “pastoral”)? I think that Jim has chosen the correct direction for those survey courses. One hopes that when a class deals with those root-level issues with which students wrestle, these students-in-the-middle will feel more confident about the foundational issues and will thus pursue the more complicated subjects on their own. For the upper-level courses, I think it is more appropriate to assume that students have dealt with these issues before and move on.

For people like me, who have already been Bible majors and now have taken survey courses all over again, it is an education in education. I have learned from different approaches to difficult subjects. But I have also learned information that was not highlighted, we have gone more in depth (as graduate classes should). I’ve also had professors that simply emphasize different things. One professor in undergrad may emphasize Greco-Roman backgrounds to the NT, while a professor in seminary may emphasize Second Temple Judaism when speaking of “background” to the NT. [I recognize the privilege of the canonical texts here--I am comparing a Christian school and a seminary after all] So it’s not like I’m falling asleep in class as all my money is sucked away into tuition bills. I am getting a good education. I suppose that you could say that, even though I’m not the target student for this gentler approach, I think that Fuller does a good job of balancing the “pastoral” educating with the information sharing and development of critical thinking skills. Even though I set it up as a choice between one or the other, then, I think it has to be a balance between the two.

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