Teaching biblical studies in a new "digital technological" environment
Teaching biblical studies in a new “digital technological” environment
In the article ‘teaching in a “collaborative, interactive, multimediated, networked, nonliear, and multi-accented” environment’ John McClymer sets out ‘to explore a specific set of pedagogies suited to teaching history.’ McClymer begins by describing history as a field of study. And what he is saying that history is “ill-structure.” What he means by “ill-structure” is that there is not a particular formula in history that can create a definite answer to something that had happened, or for interpreting facts of history. The example that he used is asking students to “discuss the rise of imperialism in late nineteenth-century America.” Consciously, students cannot discuss the rise of imperialism. What the students will do is that, they will only demonstrate that they know a version of the story from a print resource (or any other resource).
This description is somehow similar to biblical studies. There is not a definite answer in searching for the meaning in the bible unless we go and dig up all the writers in the bible and ask them. Nevertheless there are tools of interpretation in which we can use, like in history too, but our bias in our hermeneutics will illustrate different meanings of the bible. It is one of the reasons why we have loads and loads of commentaries of the bible.
On that note, McClymer’s task to explore a specific set of pedagogies suited to teaching history can also be apply to the field of biblical studies to some extend. His exploration, in my view, is a great example of this lecture class that I am participating in the Auckland University called “the Bible in the electronic context.” We set off by creating a community online on the net using “blogs” and inviting friends and families if they are interested reading blogs about biblical studies and posting comments on our blogs. Our blogs can be about anything but the focus should be on the bible and electronics (this goes for the second assignment too). This, however, does allow the student to engage in their own interest more in the field of biblical studies but also use blogging as a tool of research.
On the other hand, the goals within these two different fields (history and biblical studies) in terms of this specific set of pedagogies are different. McClymer’s goal is to ‘empower students to produce as well as consume knowledge.’ In our lecture class we have a few goals and one of them is to ‘engage critically with the body of contemporary scholarship relating to the chose topic.’ Another would be to ‘demonstrate familiarity with and ability to use biblical methodologies and approaches together with tools of research.’ So, we can see that although such pedagogies can be applied to the study of history, I think that it can also be applied to the field of biblical studies to some extend.
In the article ‘teaching in a “collaborative, interactive, multimediated, networked, nonliear, and multi-accented” environment’ John McClymer sets out ‘to explore a specific set of pedagogies suited to teaching history.’ McClymer begins by describing history as a field of study. And what he is saying that history is “ill-structure.” What he means by “ill-structure” is that there is not a particular formula in history that can create a definite answer to something that had happened, or for interpreting facts of history. The example that he used is asking students to “discuss the rise of imperialism in late nineteenth-century America.” Consciously, students cannot discuss the rise of imperialism. What the students will do is that, they will only demonstrate that they know a version of the story from a print resource (or any other resource).
This description is somehow similar to biblical studies. There is not a definite answer in searching for the meaning in the bible unless we go and dig up all the writers in the bible and ask them. Nevertheless there are tools of interpretation in which we can use, like in history too, but our bias in our hermeneutics will illustrate different meanings of the bible. It is one of the reasons why we have loads and loads of commentaries of the bible.
On that note, McClymer’s task to explore a specific set of pedagogies suited to teaching history can also be apply to the field of biblical studies to some extend. His exploration, in my view, is a great example of this lecture class that I am participating in the Auckland University called “the Bible in the electronic context.” We set off by creating a community online on the net using “blogs” and inviting friends and families if they are interested reading blogs about biblical studies and posting comments on our blogs. Our blogs can be about anything but the focus should be on the bible and electronics (this goes for the second assignment too). This, however, does allow the student to engage in their own interest more in the field of biblical studies but also use blogging as a tool of research.
On the other hand, the goals within these two different fields (history and biblical studies) in terms of this specific set of pedagogies are different. McClymer’s goal is to ‘empower students to produce as well as consume knowledge.’ In our lecture class we have a few goals and one of them is to ‘engage critically with the body of contemporary scholarship relating to the chose topic.’ Another would be to ‘demonstrate familiarity with and ability to use biblical methodologies and approaches together with tools of research.’ So, we can see that although such pedagogies can be applied to the study of history, I think that it can also be applied to the field of biblical studies to some extend.
posted by sea at 6:19 AM
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