12 Surprises When Lecturing Less

Time was, my Biblical Hebrew students and I sweated grimly in a thrice-weekly race against time. But now, with the lectures recorded (as voice-narrated Keynote/PowerPoint presentations) and moved outside of the classroom as homework, Biblical Hebrew has become the least predictable three hours of our week…because we have ...

What if you were to stage a debate on the black Christ, instead of giving a lecture on James Cone’s black theology? If you haven’t used debate in class, I encourage you to try it. The result might surprise you.  At a Wabash teaching workshop some time ago, ...

We all know that our students’ social and religious contexts shape the way they understand the Bible – in theory, at least. But how do we bring that knowledge into the classroom? This question is particularly acute in a diverse theological seminary. With just over one hundred students, Lancaster Theological Seminary ...

As the saying goes, “sometimes the old ways are best.” (Eve Moneypenny and James Bond in Skyfall, 2012) Hevruta is a venerable pedagogy that places mutual student learning at the center of the classroom. In rabbinic tradition hevruta (“friend,” “companion”) denotes a pair who read and study sacred texts together.   I ...

What are your favorite pastimes?  Does it include a night with friends at your favorite restaurant or is it watching a movie at home, on the sofa, with snacks? Imagine your college class with movie and a grade. That’s the good life. Seminary life isn’t quite like that, ...