Becoming an expert in one’s field doesn’t mean that one automatically becomes a gifted teacher in the classroom. Although I had a few opportunities to teach tutorials at Oxford and for ACU Study Abroad while I was in my doctoral program, there was almost zero formal guidance about what makes a teacher effective in the classroom. I still learned a lot by osmosis and by practice. When I arrived at ACU, I was so thankful for the many opportunities to read and discuss learning strategies and to observe my more experienced colleagues in their classrooms. As I’ve participated in these conversations, I’ve also experimented in my teaching, trying to see what style suits me, what works best, and how I can improve.
On this page and the next, I will highlight a few examples of developments in my teaching over time. I find that the skills that serve me well in the classroom are a little different from the strategies that work well online. I’ve decided to reflect on what I’ve learned about teaching in these two modalities on two separate pages. My reflection on teaching online follows this page (or click here).
Teaching in the Classroom
When I joined the GST faculty, I already had some undergraduate teaching experience: lots of experience teaching beginning New Testament Greek and a little bit of lecture-style teaching from my two-year appointment at McMurry University as a visiting professor. I had a good idea of how long a lecture would take me to deliver and how long to allow for discussions. I was grateful to have prior experience to build on, and I have found many ways to improve my face-to-face teaching over time.
One difference in my approach is the kind of course material I assign. The residential class that I teach most regularly for the GST is Theological Explorations. The course description in the catalog is broad, so I have tailored the course to fit my research interests in early Muslim-Christian relations, especially interreligious dialogue. Initially, the readings for this course were primary-source heavy. This was partly because I could easily get open-source formats of these documents but the secondary sources were often either too specialized for my students or very expensive. I tried to provide enough historical context for these in class, but my students helpfully suggested that I find some summative texts to orient learners to the historical period and the primary sources. I have found one or two inexpensive summative texts that work pretty well. I also started giving my students guiding questions and short introductions to the sources in advance so that they could read a text more productively and with a better understanding of why I assigned it. I was thankful for the enthusiasm and collaborative spirit of each group of students, especially the first class I taught.
The course material and the focus of Theological Explorations has shifted over the last few years. At first, I focused on controversial literature because that’s where one can discern most clearly the theological points of disagreement between Muslims and Christians. My research had focused on this kind of polemical literature, so it was already “in my wheelhouse.” Over time, I have come to consider a different kind of theological inquiry more engaging. In addition to the usual topics of interreligious debate (which we still cover), where do Muslim and Christian authors discuss similar theological topics, such as creation ex nihilo, how to name God, or the nature of revelation? How can these historical theological trajectories be brought into conversation with each other in ways that fruitfully explore the intersections and differences of these two vibrant world faiths? In order to redirect course material in this way, I needed to explore Muslim thought in a deeper and different way myself, and I am very gradually moving the class in a direction that stretches me in positive ways.
There is a very simple area in which I need to improve, especially for my undergraduates: assigning an appropriate amount of reading that is the right difficulty level. I find this tricky because my undergraduate classes have been upper-level Bible classes for non-majors. The work expectations are high, but the students are not as well acquainted with the subject as a major would be. I want to stretch my students, but the mixed level of ability and familiarity with the subject matter has more often than not made it difficult to judge what is stretching them and what is simply too hard or too much to expect. Once or twice, I have overcompensated and set the bar lower than I ought to have.
In both undergraduate and graduate classes, I am learning to move more nimbly between lecture and discussion. On occasion, I have a mix of students in class who readily participate in discussion, and I end up shortening the lecture I had planned for that day. Sometimes, I have had to rein in a discussion that has veered way off track. At other times, it’s like pulling teeth to get students to talk, especially my undergraduates and younger graduate students, and I have found that I was prepared for a discussion-based class when I needed to have a lecture “in my back pocket,” just in case my students were collectively taciturn that day. I’m always looking for better ways to draw students into discussion and to guide the discussion in more productive ways.
This fall I am attempting to “flip the classroom” for the first time. When we had a change in faculty after the spring semester, I volunteered to take on the residential Greek class in addition to my online class. Since I had already made full lectures for the online class, I made those available to my residential students too. I’ve asked them to watch the lectures before class, and then we devote class time to reviewing, going over things that they still don’t understand, and practicing new skills together. So far, the face-to-face class feels a little less organized than I’d like, and I have to keep reminding myself that my students already have access to a carefully structured lecture that they can review at any time. I’m glad I’m experimenting with doing things this way though; I feel confident that my students will still receive the teaching that they need even if my experiment isn’t successful, and I’m learning more about my craft too.
Next page: The Craft of Teaching, Pt. 2: Online