My teaching technique in part depends on the learning environment and audience. An upper-level, non-majors undergraduate class is rather different from a residential graduate theology class. So, what broad principles shape my context-specific strategies?

Interpretation and Contextualization
Whatever subject I’m teaching, whether it’s an ancient language or Christianity and Culture, I am teaching and modeling how context affects interpretation. In my graduate church history and theology classes, I aim to introduce the cultural and theological context of a given author or text, and we practice interpreting primary sources in light of these contexts. We sometimes find ourselves weighing possible interpretations, trying to discern which makes the most sense of the evidence that we have. We consider the lasting impact that these ideas have had on Christian theology, and how they relate to earlier ideas. We also reflect on the relevance of these matters for another context—our own. In a language class, as my students gain facility with the basics of the grammar, we practice allowing the context of a word or phrase to govern English translation choices, and we think through what these choices can mean for the interpretation of the Bible. Eventually, this lays the foundation for sound exegetical work, which should undergird a good Bible study or sermon. With my undergraduates, I strive to give them tools and skills for theological reflection that are transferable to other areas of knowledge. Whatever career or continuing education they are about to enter upon graduation, I want them to be aware of the complex intertwining of the cultural context and their faith.

Making Connections
In my first year at ACU, I read Making It Stick as a part of the Master Teacher course, and this paragraph and the next reflect the lessons that “stuck” for me. In part, the book outlines what helps students retain what they’ve learned. One way to help students retain information is to encourage them to connect it to other areas of knowledge or experience. This is why a good sermon illustration helps the attentive listener remember the main point of the message—it isn’t just entertainment, it’s a teaching tool. I try to demonstrate how to make connections between what we might cover in a historical theology class, for example, with worship or Christian education. I encourage students to reflect in their weekly reflection posts on how the material we studied connects to a memory or to reflect on its significance for their ministry context. In my undergraduate classes, I ask students to reflect on how what we’ve talked about intersects with their own vocation as Christians in the particular career they are training for. I encourage my students in the Story of Christian Spirituality to look for connections between authors of different periods and also with their own experiences. Along the way, if they learn a new spiritual practice that they wouldn’t have otherwise, all the better. As a discipline, theology is about making these sorts of connections, and as a faculty we want our students to learn how to integrate their academic training with their ministry. It just so happens that making connections in this way helps the learning process too.

Spaced Practice
Making It Stick also discusses the importance of spaced practice for learning. In spaced practice, a student actively attempts to retrieve information that they recently learned. I build time for review into each class period so that we recall where we’ve been together even as we move on to new material. Sometimes I ask students to stop and recall, and at other times (for the sake of efficiency), I jog their memories. For my residential graduate students, I ask them to write a reflective paragraph about the class and assignments and submit it at the end of the week rather than at the beginning, and then at our next meeting, I often begin by reflecting on the common themes that popped up in my students’ reflections. It’s a good way to review and to connect as we begin again.

Interpersonal Relations
Forming meaningful teacher-student relationships is essential to the learning process—students learn more from teachers they like. I can’t control whether a student likes me or cares about the subject I’m teaching, but I can try to make sure that I communicate availability, care, and hospitality. When I design my online classes, I am particularly concerned to make sure that my students know that there are multiple avenues of communication with me and with each other. A couple of years ago, I started requiring my online undergraduate students to meet one-on-one with me at the beginning of the semester. The class is otherwise asynchronous, so this is one of the only real-time contacts I’ll have with many of them. I want to make sure that they begin the semester with a sense that I’m interested in them and accessible if they need help.

Measuring Teacher Effectiveness
“I no longer measure my success as a professor by my top-performing students. Gifted students will excel even under a sub-par professor. I judge whether I am an effective teacher by whether my average students improve over time.” I can’t remember who shared this insight at my new teacher orientation at McMurry University, but it has stuck with me over the years. The good students would be good students no matter what I do, but I think my approach can make a world of difference to a student who is struggling. It is tempting to pitch a class at the level of the best student in the room, and I do want to challenge and stretch that sort of student. That said, I want to make sure that my middle-of-the-road students are not left behind; I want them to be challenged enough to grow but not so much that they despair. I have found this a more difficult balance to strike with non-major undergraduates than with any other crowd—the standard of deviation is so wide and sometimes things that I think are pretty straightforward are complicated for many students in the class. For others, it’s never challenging enough. I’m trying to strike a better balance there. My online undergraduate classes require a lot of reading and weekly writing assignments, and I have noticed marked improvement among some of my students over the course of a semester. They learn to write better essays over time and their reading comprehension also improves. I sometimes wonder if they’d be pushed to improve this way in a face-to-face class; in the classroom, it’s easier to hide if you’re not doing the reading or struggling to understand the class material.

Next page: Integration of Faith and Learning