Process for Reflecting on Incidents of Teaching at Its Best

Resource 2

Patricia O’Connell Killen, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita, Religion, Pacific Lutheran University

NOTE: This resource is the reflective process we used during a 2.5 day gathering of participants and the project team.

Orientation

This reflective process is deliberately anchored in your actual teaching practice, in pedagogy as expressed in your own teaching and your students’ encounter with it. During the process it will be important to remain close to the concrete scene, to be true to the dynamics of teaching and learning in the incident as it is shared. The reflective process is designed to help us do a close reading or thick description of each incident and to avoid prematurely pivoting into broader conversation about what teaching and learning “should be” or what any one of us might “wish I had done differently.” The premise of this reflective process is that remaining close to the ground of actual incidents of teaching at its best provides a fruitful, focused entry into the pivotal question of our gathering: Whether key theological themes from one’s institution’s faith heritage are present explicitly or implicitly in pedagogy, albeit perhaps unacknowledged.  Is theology embedded in pedagogy? If so, how? [Note: In adapting this reflective process to other settings and purposes, one can substitute the question “What key values and commitments from the institution’s mission and vision are present implicitly or explicitly in one’s pedagogy?”] 

Structure

We will move through this reflective process in two different rounds. In round one, you will share and reflect on one of your incidents with a colleague from a sister denominational/heritage institution. For round two we will share as a single group of presenters and listeners. 

Process

1. Presenter: Select and narrate one of your incidents of teaching at its best. The goal is to describe the incident so that your listener/s can be in the scene with you. (up to 5 minutes)
2. Listener:  Bring an attentive, curious, and nonjudgmental presence to your listening. Listen in a way that allows you to see, feel, smell, sense the scene with its unfolding action. Stay close to the narrative. 
3. Listener: When the presenter has finished presenting, ask any necessary clarifying questions that help you be present in and to the incident (up to 2 minutes). 
4. Listener: Once you have a concrete sense of the incident, jot down your thoughts related to the following: (up to 2 minutes)
   1. What are the practices, the behaviors of the faculty member and student/s in the incident?
   2. What seem to be the values embedded in the incident?
   3. What theological themes, if any, seem present? E.g., view of the human person, the nature of community, how learning, change, transformation occur, the fundamental human conundrum.
   4. What sensibilities, themes, or emphases that you associate with the theology of your particular strand of Christianity come to mind, if any?
   5. Other observations, thoughts?
5. Presenter:  Share with the listener the statement that you composed about what made this incident one of “teaching at its best.” (2 minutes)
6. Listener:  Share the thoughts you noted down. (up to 3 minutes)
7. Listener and Presenter: Engage in conversation about the incident. (5 minutes) 
   1. What do you both see and hear in it by way of teaching practices, values, theological themes, denominational/heritage sensibilities?
   2. Is theology present in the pedagogy?  How?

Reverse roles and go through the process again.

8. After sharing both incidents, discuss:
   1. What are the similarities and differences between the two incidents, especially in terms of teaching practices, values, theological themes, denominational/heritage sensibilities? 
   2. Did you find faith heritage to be present in your own pedagogy?  In your colleague’s pedagogy?  
      1. If so, how is it present?  
      2. If so, in what directions does its presence nudge your imagination around teaching and learning?  
   3. What is emerging from your conversation?