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Reflections on online teaching: positives (2)

This morning I ran across a website created by a teacher named Sam Kary: The New EdTech Classroom. He created a resource called ‘How to Teach Remotely: The Ultimate Guide’ which includes ten things that can be done to enhance your online/remote teaching. I browsed through this list and I was happy to see I had done six or seven of the items:

1. Set Up Well-Organized Digital Classrooms
2. Teach Synchronously with Digital Conferencing
3. Provide Instruction Asynchronously with Prerecorded Tutorials
4. Use Hyperdocs to Create Dynamic Independent Studies
6. Make Student Thinking Visible
9. Provide Meaningful Feedback
10. Build Better Connections with Families

Let me explain, quickly, how I did these things. Then I’ll list the things I didn’t do which will serve as a gateway for my next post on negatives.

I used Google Classroom. I made sure that the work was clearly definite by two categories: Classwork and Homework. In the Classwork Stream I organized assignments by their due dates and made sure that their descriptions were the same as they were in our school’s online hub that connects with the Registrar’s Office.

I used Google Meet. I said a bit about this yesterday.

For ‘Homework’, I recorded short instructional videos for each assignment. I would open a Google Meet by myself, record it, and allow that recording to land in my Google Drive. Then I’d share it along with the relevant assignment in Google Classroom.

I’ve been using HyperDocs for over a year. I used Google Docs. As I mentioned yesterday, I require students complete guided notes (I call them ‘Course Guides’). This allows me to link to any videos and/or articles found elsewhere on the web.

Side note: I don’t show videos over Google Meet (and don’t recommend it for Zoom) because it’s too choppy. So, I make sure they have access to the video on YouTube, and then ask them to play it from the Slides/Doc I share with them. I still play the video, muted, so they can see it in Presentation Mode, and get a sense that the class is watching the video ‘together’, but avoids the irritation of trying to watch a video that sounds and looks like it’s skipping.

As concerns ‘making students think visibly’ I had them build things like Solomon’s Temple from household items, video record themselves answering questions, draw comics, create memes, etc.

In spite of having a class of thirty students, and in spite of it being a crash course, I was able to give quick feedback because I had an Assistant Teacher. But I feel confident that when my classes are back down in number, and assignments aren’t due multiple times daily, grading with solid feedback should be easy.

Finally, I sent an email to families multiple times and I used Google Classroom’s option to send a report to guardians about once a week on average. This helped parents keep up with their students work assignments but also helped students see what they had done, not done, and what grades they had received recently.

Ok, to the things I didn’t do:
5. Use Personalized Learning and Engagement Platforms
7. Use Creativity Apps for Authentic Learning Experiences
8. Publish Work to Foster Class Community

I’ll say a bit about this, and some other areas that weren’t successful, next time.

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Reflections on online teaching: positives

Last week I finished teaching my first online class where about half of the time was synchronous learning. Normally, summer school classes begin at 8 AM and end at 12 noon for three weeks (60 hours + nightly homework). We weren’t going to ask students to sit in a Google Meet for four straight hours every day, so most days we went from 9-11 AM. A couple of days we went from 8-11 AM (the first and last days). ‘Class’ could end at 11:30 AM if I had them doing a review or breaking out into discussion groups (‘Cohorts’ in my classes).

Where I live—San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas—we’re experiencing a spike on Covid-19 cases. Not only will this impact summer break but I think we need to be ready for the possibility that it will wreck the normality of school not only for the spring semester but even the fall semester. In fact, I worry, but also anticipate, that the academic year will have barely begun when we’re already having to adjust to some form of online learning. That said, I don’t speak in any official capacity. Just my educated guess here.

So, with this in mind, learning from what went well and what didn’t will help me in the fall. And for those of you who are preparing for the wild ride that could be this next school year, I hope some of this insights help.

  1. Guided notes were essential: I use guided notes in class anyway, but guided notes that had to be submitted soon after class, especially using Google Docs, allowed me to check the Doc history to make sure they were working on the assignment in real time and not just asking friends for answers later in the day. Also, the guided notes were extremely scripted. Things I would know to say while teaching in person don’t need to be written down, but when everyone is following along from home, I felt that scripted notes were important.
  2. Creating space for Cohorts to meet was a success: I use Google Meet. I don’t like Zoom but I think it might have more capacity in the area I’m about to describe. Nevertheless, Google Meet was sufficient. I wanted students to have some form of ‘community’. I wanted them to have friends with which they could do assignments. So, about a third of the days I had students continue after main session by going to separate Google Meets for discussions. This meant organizing the class by Cohorts and then choosing Cohort leaders. The responsibility of the Cohort leader was to guide the discussion, record it, and share it with me and the Assistant Teacher. I kept time requirements simple: discuss for 6 minutes; discuss for 10 minutes. Then I listened to the recordings to make sure they stayed on topic for the allotted time.
  3. Collaborative homework assignments were embraced: Usually, I’d show movies/TV in my class so my students can see the Bible-as-visual-art but since we weren’t meeting in person I asked them to buy the films/episodes themselves. In the end, it was cheaper than textbooks. Also, I invited students to participate in ‘watch parties’ where they’d connect on their phones while watching the same movie. The answers to questions about the movies were intended to be very subjective, so I invited them to discuss their answers together, which hopefully got them talking about the movie/TV episode, and furthered their learning.
  4. Not all assignments were traditional: Sure, I had them do a lot of reading/writing during the non-synchronous parts of class, but as mentioned I also had them watch movies/TV and record their observations. I had them build Solomon’s Temple out of items they could find around their house. I had them meet in a Google Meet to record a dramatic reading of the Book of Jonah. Some of the parents who wrote me mentioned this as one of the things about the class they really appreciated. Some families watched the movies/TV together, so that added a new element that could only be done in this format.
  5. Record responses to homework: My students spend a lot of time on YouTube, Tik Tok, and other video-centric websites and apps. So, it’s natural for them to record things. I tried to use this to my advantage. As I mentioned, they recorded their Cohort discussions. They recorded their dramatic reading of Jonah. I had them ‘review’ The Prince of Egypt by doing a video recording and pretending that they were a famous YouTube movie reviewer.

That’s the first list of positives. As I think of more, I’ll share. Also, I’ll share some of the negatives.

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Reading the Bible Digitally 2.0

Last December, I shared a new project I was introducing to my students called ‘Reading the Bible Digitally’. It’s the last exercise for students who take my class, ‘The Hebrew Scriptures’ (formerly ‘Old Testament’). I wrote a blog post about it here: ‘Guiding students toward a critical use of Internet resources’.

Well, I have a new, updated version of this project with help from my friend and colleague, Fr. Nate Bostian, who developed the ‘C.L.E.A.R.’ rubric used at the end. Also, since my creation of this project, I found Crash Course’s ‘Navigating Digital Information’ series, which is really helpful. Here’s version 2.0:

Reading the Bible DigitallyDownload

The updates don’t change the goal: ‘to teach my students to think critically about the Internet resources they use.’ These students may take another class with me. They may take my class ‘The Christian Scriptures’ giving them access to the Bible again. But at some point, they’ll be on their own, and except for the few who major in religious studies, they’ll rely on the Internet for information about the Bible. I hope this project provides them with some tools to make them discerning readers and researchers.

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Recently read: Smith-Christopher’s ‘A Biblical Theology of Exile’

Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, A Biblical Theology of Exile (OBT; Fortress Press, 2002).

‘Biblical Theology’ is a quirky discipline. I’ve seen it abused by E/evangelical theologians who try to bend parts of the Bible to fit nicely with others parts of the Bible when the fit is clearly forced. But when an author engages the Bible’s internal ‘conversation’ while doing ‘Biblical Theology’, that’s something I can support. In fact, I teach my classes ‘The Hebrew Scriptures’ and ‘The Christian Scriptures’ from this approach. And it’s something I’ve seen a related book, David M. Carr’s Holy Resilience, do quite nicely.

Let me begin with where the book was tricky for me. The advocacy of ‘diasporic theology’, or a ‘theology of exile’, is a worthy discipline. My problem is with the voices that have been front-and-center. And they’re voices I admire: Stanley Hauerwas and Walter Brueggemann are the two primary examples. These two stand out in the first chapter, ‘Biblical Theology: On Matters of Methodology’, and the last chapter, ‘Toward a Diaspora Christian Theology: The Theology of Tobit and Daniel Revisited’. I’m not saying that Smith-Christopher centers them. I’m just saying they stand out to me. And I acknowledge that this book is almost twenty years old so I’m saying this from the perspective of the reader. The greatest evidence of the role of time is the positive presentation of John Howard Yoder. Yoder’s legacy has been damaged over the past several years as we’ve learned more about his treatment of women. So, I say all that to say this: as I read this book it had me asking myself what theologians and scholars of color, theologians and scholars from womanist, and feminist, and LGBTQI perspectives, do I need to be reading, if I really want to ponder a diasporic theology, a ‘theology of exile’.

Smith-Christopher recognized this danger when he wrote the book. He quotes Caren Kaplan in warning of ‘a temporarily faddish “tourist” theology’ (p. 196). A theology where we try on diaspora and exile as a philosophical concept while ignoring the real, terrestrial diasporic and exilic experiences of people all over the world. In the age of increasing populations of people who are refugees, this seems to me to be very important.

Also, I wondered about the sort of post-politics approach advocated here. Even my local Mennonite friends seem to be more politically active, in the commonly held sense (voter registration; fighting for policy change) than this book supports. I need to see what the author says now that we are living through the ‘age of Tr*mp’.

But on to the positives, because this was a great book. Let me tell you where my thinking was challenged most rather than giving an overview of a book that’s been available for a while:

  1. How I depict the Persians: I’ve tended to play the Persians off against the Assyrians and Babylonians as the ‘more tolerant’ of the empires, and this is generally true, but chapter 2, ‘Violence and Exegesis: The History of Exile’, especially pp. 34-44 where the Persians are discussed in relation to Ezra and Nehemiah, made me realize that ‘more tolerant’ shouldn’t soften the criticism of the imperialist ideology of the Persians.
  2. How Ezekiel and Jeremiah experienced trauma: The above book by Carr opened my eyes to the role of traumatic experiences in shaping the Bible we have today. Smith-Christopher expanded my thinking on this matter as he discussed how the Books of Lamentations and Ezekiel display the trauma of exile. When we think of the Bible, we need to be careful not to read it through the lens of Christian triumphalism. What has dawned on me over the years is that ‘reading from belo w’ usually leads a person to reading the Bible more clearly.
  3. Jonah’s ‘universalizing’ message: Almost a decade ago, I wondered aloud on an old blog why the Apostle Paul’s letters never reference the Book of Jonah. I’m glad to see that my understanding of Jonah, which is what led me to ponder how perfectly it could fit with Paul’s Gospel, isn’t mine alone. Smith-Christopher sees the Book of Jonah as this author’s attempt at depicting ‘Isaiah’s “light to the nations”‘ in narrative form (see pp. 132-133).
  4. Ezra may not have been less a bigot and more an advocate for his minority culture within an empire: When I read the Book of Ezra, I’m bothered by his command for the Jewish men to divorce their non-Jewish women. It sounds bigoted and sectarian. But Smith-Christopher proposes we might want to at least consider Ezra from a different angle. He writes (p. 198), ‘If one speaks, for example, to Native Americans in the United States about adoption of Native children by non-Native families, one quickly finds oneself in the presence of Ezra-like concerns that allow us to appreciate what it means to worry about the very existence and viability of cultural survival.’

There’s so much more I could say but I think this suffices. If you’re interested in how the Babylonian Exile and Jewish Diaspora impacted the shape of the Bible and it’s message, this is an excellent book. Several weeks ago, Erica Mongé-Greer (see my interviews with her on ‘Creation Mythologies’ and ‘Flood Mythologies’) recommended this book to me. So, thank you, Erica! It was a great read.

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Google Meeting the Bible Again for the First Time: Days 12-14 of Summer School

I was wrong. I didn’t find the key to grid view using Google Meet. At least not one that works consistently. The extension ‘Grid View’ by GitHub has become increasingly unstable that past few days. It prevented by Assistant Teacher from signing on until she uninstalled it. I used it last a few days ago and it wasn’t a grid but a bunch of slivers stacked on one another. I couldn’t see anything but a few names. Google Meet needs to add this feature as a standard one before the fall.

Otherwise, summer school has been great. I’ll continue to post reflections on the actual content and teaching over the rest of the summer. But I haven’t encountered much that is new regarding the art of online teaching. The first week was the learning curve. I’ve settled into a routine since then.

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Divine command theory and Hosea’s actions

I had my students write short ‘essays’ in response to a prompt based on one of their recent homework assignments. They can choose the one with which they’re most comfortable. Here’s one of those prompts:

‘In Homework #18, you learned about the content and message of the Book of Hosea. If you choose this prompt, you’ll need to tell me the following information in a minimum of 6 sentences: (1) Do you think it was moral or immoral for Hosea to marry a sex-worker (prostitute) knowing what she would do to him and their family? (Explain why.) (2) Do you think it was moral or immoral for Hosea to give his children the names he gave them? (Explain why.) (3) Does the fact that these actions are presented as obedient responses to divine commands change how you interpret them? (In other words, if Hosea did these things without being commanded by God would that change their morality?)’

When they learned about Hosea, they learned how Yahweh God had told Hosea that his marriage and the birth of his children would be overshadowed by Gomer’s occupation, and Hosea was commanded to give his children some degrading names (e.g., Lo-ammi, ‘not my people’), yet Hosea’s often justified because ‘God said’ to do it (divine command theory).

Among the responses, there’s been a desire to say that this is an exception to a general rule, because/if God commanded it. But the ‘why?’ has been harder for them to articulate. One response (that needed to be unpacked more) was the ‘greater good’ defense. God commanded these seemingly problematic actions because Hosea’s sacrificial life contributed to the greater good for others.

While rare, there were those who pushed back against the question. One student wrote, ‘Speaking broadly, marrying a sex worker is perfectly moral.’ His problem was with Hosea marrying Gomer knowing the consequences of this decision. This student wrote, ‘…intentionally bringing his children into a broken home just to make examples of them was an immoral decision.’ But it was his final argument that I found fascinating: ‘if Hosea had done these things without God’s requesting of them, then I actually believe it would be more moral. After all, Hosea only knew for sure that his wife was going to leave him because an omniscient deity told him so. If he did not have Yahweh’s foresight on his side, then absolutely none of what he did would have been immoral — only unfortunate.’

Another student put ‘God in the dock’ if you will, writing, ‘Hosea’s actions were immoral because God’s actions were immoral.’ Now it wasn’t clarified if this means God’s command was immoral which pushed Hosea to do something immoral or if she meant that God’s actions toward Israel were immoral as modeled by Hosea’s actions toward Gomer.

It’s been interesting reading through these responses. Some students experience a real uneasiness with saying that God could be immoral or command something immoral while simultaneously struggling to articulate why an action that would otherwise be immoral (intentionally marrying someone who you know will blow up your family; giving your children derogatory names to make a point) is moral when God commands it.

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Team Daniel or Team Esther

Yesterday, I paired the Books of Daniel and Esther. Both are post-exilic writings set in the exile/diaspora. Both feature Jews who have found their way into the royal courts of Babylon and/or Persia. Both address the question of how true one must remain to their Jewishness to show fidelity to their god. In the Book of Daniel, characters such as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego don’t compromise. They are willing to die/suffer rather than break their dietary laws, or worship other gods, or even take a break from worshipping their god. Esther and Mordecai hide Esther’s Jewish identity which includes eating Persian foods, having sex and marrying a Gentile, and who knows what else. Mordecai might be a little more like Daniel and friends when he refuses to bow to Haman but overall the ethics of the Book of Esther are less black-and-white than the Book of Daniel.

I ended class by having my students get together in a Google Meet and record their discussion where they argued for either the quasi-deontological (or divine command) approach of the Book of Daniel or the more consequentialist approach of the Book of Esther. One of my student leaders begun the conversation by asking who was ‘Team Esther’ or ‘Team Daniel’. So far, as I watch/grade the recordings, team Esther is winning (though there were a few pro-Daniel students).

What’s fascinating is to observe their reasoning. Some students say they’d be like Daniel depending on the context though if the context was that your life was at risk, they’d be more like Esther. One student pointed out that Esther never explicitly said she wasn’t a Jew (though it could be argued many would have accused her of not living like one), so she didn’t technically lie about this.

Another topic that caught my ear was the difference between how God’s presence is narrated in Daniel contrast with Esther. Famously, God speaks to Daniel in dream and visions. He intervenes miraculously. Esther is ambiguous about God’s presence. God is never named or directly mentioned. Some of the key turning points suggest to some readers that God’s in the background but God is never mentioned. I think that’s key. For some students, if God was performing the deeds like we read in Daniel, sure, they’d adopt his approach, but life seems to be more Esther-ish: whatever we might say about divine activity, it’s not clear when and where God acts.

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Reading While Black

Esau McCaulley, as Assistant Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, and ACNA priest, has a book titled Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation and an Exercise in Hope. It looks good and I intend on reading it. As a preview of his message, I want to point to his New York Times Opinion piece titled ‘What the Bible Has to Say About Black Anger’. He looks at lament and imprecatory psalms, including Psalm 137, which is one of the first passages from the Bible I have my students read in my class ‘The Hebrew Scriptures’.

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Google Meeting the Bible Again for the First Time: Day 11 of Summer School

The final week of summer school begins today! Today, we juxtapose the ways the Books of Daniel and Esther respond to exile and occupation. The first has a major role for God, angels, and other forms of divine intervention; the latter never mentions God. The first consistently advocates for living faithfully even if it means losing your life; the latter is a mixed bag (begins with Esther being secretive; ends with Esther risking her life). The first has a male protagonist; the latter a female. I’m sure there are more interesting contrasts between these two post-exilic works set during in Babylonian and Persian Empires. They’re fun to teach together.

While I’m exhausted and ready for my summer break to begin, I’m also really glad I taught this course. The class has been great. And I’ve been able to test different approaches to teaching online, you know, just in case wave 2, or wave 1.2, of the pandemic wipes out in person instruction again.

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Google Meeting the Bible Again for the First Time: Days 8-10 of Summer School

The extension to Google Meet has worked well. It’s allowed me to see everyone on a grid. So, that’s another reason to prefer it over Zoom!

This week has been fun. We move from the Exodus through to the Babylonian Exile. Now we’re examining the Hebrew Prophets.

It was also a good week for fun exercises. Students have made memes, recorded movie reviews, and built Solomon’s Temple our of household items. The parent feedback I’ve received has expressed gratitude for the diversity of assignments that has kept things fresh and interesting.

One week to go!