Teaching Theology and Religion
Special Call for Papers
“Games and Learning in Religion and Theology”
Manuscripts Due September 1, 2017
The last decade and more of research into the impact of digital media on teaching and learning has lifted up multiple and diverse ways in which students’ experiences of learning in informal settings fundamentally shape how they approach formal, classroom settings. This research has highlighted video games in particular, and terms like ”gameful” learning, ”gamification,” and ”games/learning/society” are increasingly common in this literature.
Teaching Theology and Religion, an international peer-reviewed journal published by Wiley-Blackwell, seeks essays in a variety of genres and lengths that analyze how games and gameful learning are being utilized – and/or resisted — in religious studies and theology classrooms. Please send ideas, interest, or inquiries to Special Topics Editor, Mary Hess mhess@religioused.org.
How are you using simulations or alternate reality exercises to explore specific kinds of religious studies or theology content? Are web quests and other forms of gameful searching still useful? Have digital badges become a tool in your classrooms? How do games and gaming shape your approach to specific topics that are taught (rituals, for instance, or rules-based authority) and the ways that you teach? Does endless student fascination with games create opportunities or barriers for learning? How do you navigate competing claims on your students’ attention? What are the opportunities for student learning that exist in the midst of games? What kinds of challenges have you undertaken and what kinds of resources have you drawn on? What particular teaching strategies have you developed and how did they work?
We invite papers that address how you are integrating game design into your teaching and learning strategies, as well as how a broader societal fascination with games is impacting your religion and/or theology classrooms.
Successful essays will draw on relevant literature and include thoughtful analysis of pedagogical solutions, experiments, challenges, and student learning in specific contexts. We also welcome shorter “Notes from the Classroom,” one page “Teaching Tactics,” 1500 word Book Reviews, or review essays that construct an argument by comparing and relating several important books in this field. All manuscripts will be vetted through the journal’s normal outside blind peer-review process.
Due September 1, 2017
Send manuscripts, inquires or questions, to:
Mary Hess
Luther Seminary
mhess@religioused.org