IST2017-1-WI14 - Teaching & Learning Fth. Communities

The Seven Of Pentacles

Under a sky the color of pea soup

she is looking at her work growing away there

actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.
 
Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.
 
Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us 
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.
 
Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
 
~ Marge Piercy ~

Instructor: Dr. Katherine Turpin
E-mail: kturpin@iliff.edu

Course Synopsis

In this class we will be exploring the practice of religious education in communities of faith with a particular emphasis on the nature of teaching and learning. In one sense, this is an "Intro to Teaching" course designed to give students an opportunity to practice teaching their colleagues and receive feedback on their attempts. Through the ongoing teaching and learning occasions, we will also have opportunities to reflect on questions of the design of educational environments (both embodied and virtual), different modes of learning, relational dynamics in classroom settings, and alternative forms of embodied and aesthetic pedagogy.

Books for the Course

Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown. A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (January 4, 2011) ISBN-13:978-1456458881.

Course Rhythm

Because we have an exceptionally long time together each day, we will utilize the following rhythm for our time together in the third-tenth sessions:

1:00 Opening Focusing Moment

1:05-2:15 Plenary Session (discussion and activities related to the readings for the day)

2:15-2:30 Hospitality Moment, Stretch Break and Set-up Teaching Locations

2:30- 4:25 Teaching Practica and Reflection

4:25-4:30 Closing, Clean-up, Housekeeping Details for Next Week

Course Objectives

Students completing this course and engaging seriously in its practices can expect to:

1. Participate in the establishment of a learning community.
2. Develop understanding of the dynamics at work in teaching and learning situations.
3. Nurture the development of their own teaching style.
4. Practice collegial feedback for improved teaching.
5. Develop practices of attention to:

• religious and identity-bearing experiences in persons and communities;
• ways that educational structures, teaching relationships, and processes of learning give shape to personal and communal experiences;
• models, strategies, and resources for teaching in faith communities;
• working constructively with the varieties of difference present in every classroom.

Evaluation

Participation in Plenary and Practicum Sessions- (30% of grade) This includes the two teaching practica that you will lead (see Teaching Practicum Guidelines); the feedback conversation you will facilitate (see Response to Teaching Guidelines); and your presence in plenary and practicum sessions.  Nearly two-thirds of the course material will occur in the teaching practicum and reflection sessions.  These are experiential learning moments that cannot be replaced by work outside of the classroom.  Your participation in the practicum and your voice in the feedback and reflection times are essential to the learning of your classmates.  Your preparation through reading, planning teaching sessions, etc., will enhance the level of learning that we all experience.  For these reasons, and because this class only meets nine times during the term, missing class will adversely affect your grade.  More than one absence (or excessive tardiness) will result in the lowering of the participation grade by one full letter.  Only dire circumstances will be excluded from this policy at the discretion of the instructor. Participation grades will include student self-evaluation and instructor feedback at the end of the quarter.

Portfolio Entries- (70% of grade) Final portfolio due March 10.  See Portfolio Guidelines for full details of what the portfolio should contain and how it will be evaluated.  

Policies and Services

Incompletes:  Taking an incomplete is difficult in this class because so much of the class learning arises from participation in the class sessions, which cannot be recreated later.  In cases of dire emergency, see the Master's Student Handbook for Policies and Procedures regarding incompletes.

Pass/Fail:  Masters students wishing to take the class pass/fail should discuss this with the instructor by the second class session.

Academic Integrity and Community Covenant:  All students are expected to abide by Iliff’s statement on Academic Integrity, as published in the Masters Student Handbook.  All participants in this class are expected to be familiar with Iliff’s Community Covenant.

Accommodations:  Iliff engages in a collaborative effort with students with disabilities to reasonably accommodate student needs.   Students are encouraged to contact their assigned advisor to initiate the process of requesting accommodations.  The advising center can be contacted at advising@iliff.edu or by phone at 303-765-1146. 

Writing Lab:  Grammar and organization are important for all written assignments.  Additional help is available from the Iliff Writing Lab, which is available for students of any level who need help beginning an assignment, organizing thoughts, or reviewing a final draft. 

Inclusive Language:  It is expected that all course participants will use inclusive language in speaking and writing, and will strive to use terms that do not create barriers to classroom community, and seek forgiveness and reconciliation when their language causes harm to other students. 

Degree Learning Goals

Theology and Religious Practices (PR):  engage, construct, and apply theological and interdisciplinary analyses in relation to contemporary religious traditions, practices, and institutions in order to assess, design, and perform transformative leadership and meaningful communal practices with sensitivity to contextual realities and theoretical constructions.