Teaching Religious Studies: REL 6931Lesley A. Northup
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The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the ocean
searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and makes its home for life. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore, so it eats it.
It's rather like getting tenure.
--Michael Scriven
CALENDAR AUG 25 Introductory matters: texts, interests, assignments; TA cert Click for reading
SEP 2 Religious Studies as a Field Click here for reading 1,2, 3, 4, 5
SEP 9 Professionalization and CVs Click here for reading 1
SEP 16 Developing a teaching philosophy
SEP 23 The intro course; Read Juergensmeyer Click here for reading 1, 2,
SEP 30 Texts: Teaching Philosophy due
OCT 7 Effective assignments
OCT 14 Learning outcomes and assessment Click here for reading 1, 2
OCT 21 Plagiarism and cheating Click here for reading 1, 2
OCT 28 Video and other material
NOV 4 The syllabus Click here for reading 1
NOV 18 Discussion of syllabus: Syllabus due
NOV 25 Online teaching Click here for reading 1
DEC 2 Teaching styles and strategies. Reports on style due.
Click here for reading 1, 2, 3
DEC 9 Cases, diversity, and knotty problem. EXERCISESTeaching philosophy
| Take the Teaching Style survey at
http://longleaf.net/teachingstyle
Write a 1-3 page description of your personal teaching
philosophy, based on our class discussion. What are your
goals for student learning? How do you go about
achieving those goals? Your statement should include your
ideas about learning and how it comes about; your idea of
your role as a teacher; techniques you will use in your
teaching; the things you value most pedagogically, and so on. |
Teaching style
| Observe at least three instructors of REL2011
(preferably, at least twice). Extensively critique
teaching style and approach: physical and personal
manner; mix of lecture/discussion/video/ other;
involvement of students; organization; syllabus;
textbooks; etc. Are they effective? Why or why not?
What could be improved? What would you emulate?
What would you avoid? Why? What did you learn
from this exercise? |
Syllabus:
| (1) Review syllabuses of faculty members for
REL 2011. Critique, compare, and contrast. What
did you like, dislike, have problems with? Which
features would you use yourself, and why? Write
a short informal report of 3-4 pp.
(2) Devise your own syllabus for an introductory
religious studies course. Remember to define your
audience first-- what type of student body do you
project for this course?
(3) Write up a rationale for the syllabus--i.e.,
what you did and why you did it. Would you use the
World Religions or Intro to Religion approach?
(See Juergensmeyer.) Why did you choose this
approach? What is in/not in your syllabus, and why? |
LINKS
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