Slides used during a presentation Mary Hess made to the ATS roundtable at mid-career.

1. teaching after tenure
musings at mid-career
15 march 2014

2. “Seminary education may have its share of forgettable
educational moments, but its central educational
agenda is a deep and crucial form of learning. It is the
soul-shaping learning that forms religious vocation.”
Aleshire (29)

3. “It is not enough for teachers to be brilliant scholars.
Nor is it enough for teachers to be entertaining circus
side shows. Teachers must be brilliant, passionate,
intense, insistent, compelling, and relentless.”
Student quoted in Aleshire (63)

4. “people should stop writing so much! … the literature
is too voluminous for any one person to read, even in
highly specialized areas. The exponential growth of
new information begets more and more writing about
narrower and narrower areas of inquiry.”
Aleshire (69)

5. “Competition for religion teaching jobs is so fierce that those
fortunate enough to get hired have largely forgotten how to
be collegial … What’s more, religion scholars face unique
pressures to continually justify their jobs at institutions that
often are either struggling to survive or cutting back on
religion departments. And a rapidly changing church
landscape means faculty get bombarded with mixed
messages about how best to train tomorrow’s faith leaders.”
Killen (web)

6. “Christianity is a teaching faith. It carries in its heart the
making of disciples through teaching. Yet its pedagogical
vision is inside its Christological horizon and embodiment,
inside its participatio Christi and its imitatio Christi. The
colonialist moment indicates the loss of that horizon and
embodiment through its enclosure in exaggerated judgment,
hyperevaluation tied to a racial optic … faith seeking
understanding mutates into faith judging intelligence.”
Jennings (107ff)

7. are you overwhelmed yet?

8. adaptive challenges
• shifts across the landscape of
higher education generally, and
theological education more
specifically (demographic,
digital, financial, etc.)
• shifts in how we understand
authority, authenticity, agency
• multi faith contexts
• competing commitments
(teaching, research, leadership,
family, community, globe)

9. “up on the balcony” and “deeper inside”

10. four points
• adaptive challenges require
adaptive action
• key to adaptive action is
managing attention
• the one element that is key is
the primary thing we don’t
manage well
• pragmatic ways to manage
attention in teaching

11. adaptive challenges require adaptive action

12. “Adaptive action is a way of working effectively in
changing unpredictable circumstances. With adaptive
action there is no linear, prescribed sequence of steps.
But there are principles and practices that can enable
groups to set the conditions for a preferred future.”
Eoyang (web)

13. 3 kinds of change
• static: change comes from a
specific intervention that
moves a stable system from
one point to the next
• dynamic: change comes over
time following a smooth
trajectory (planning is useful)
• dynamical: change is
influenced by multiple variables
that are interdependent and
thus unpredictable

14. enhancing adaptive
capacity
• teach and learn in every
interaction
• see, understand, and influence
patterns
• pay attention to patterns in the
whole, the part, and the greater
whole
• recognize and build on the assets
of self and others
• search for the true and the useful
• act with courage
• engage in joyful practice
Patterson, Hollady, Eoyang (19)

15. I can’t imagine a better description of, or prescription
for, your vocation as a theological educator. At this point
in your journey you have the institutional authorization to
do precisely this — and teaching your courses may be
one of the most effective ways to do so.

16. it begins with managing attention — your own,
your students’, your institution’s

17. managing your own attention

18. collaborative inquiry
• building into your work regularly-scheduled time for reflection
on what you are learning
• discerning when you want and need the skillful help of others
• thinking through as best you can what kind of help you need
• finding people you trust to give you what you need in a way
that you can use it
• making yourself available and open to receive the help you’ve
asked for
Dykstra (web)

20. more ideas
• form a teaching/learning reflection group on your campus
• find a mentor — or more than one!
• work with a spiritual director
• draw upon Wabash Center resources and workshops
• subscribe to Tomorrow’s Professor
• work with a local Center for Teaching and Learning

21. managing your students’ attention

22. “to teach is to create an environment in which
obedience to truth can be practiced”
Parker Palmer

23. first understand knowing

25. pedagogical practices
• animating/essential questions
• differentiating circles of ideas and concepts
• rubrics
• managing your own emotions

26. animating/essential questions
• cause genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content
• provoke deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new
understanding as well as more questions
• require students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their
ideas, and justify their answers
• stimulate vital, on-going rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior
lessons
• spark meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences
• naturally recur, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and
subjects
Wiggins and McTighe

27. what essential questions are you asking in your
courses?

28. differentiate
between…
• ideas and concepts
central to
understanding
• ideas and concepts
important to know and
to do
• ideas and concepts
worth being familiar
with

29. what is the ‘enduring understanding’ or the ‘central
idea or concept’ that you want students to
remember 10 years from now when they think
about your course?

30. use rubrics for clarity
of expectation
• rubric for ‘six facets of
understanding’
• individual assignment
rubrics
• critical incident
questionnaire

31. how do the rubrics you’re currently using support
your essential questions and enduring
understandings?

33. managing the emotions and tensions of learning

34. Stephen Brookfield
• expect ambiguity
• perfection is an illusion
• ground your teaching in how your
students are learning
• be wary of standardized approaches
and models
• regularly reflect on your own learning
• take your instincts seriously
• create diversity
• don’t be afraid to take risks
• remember that learning is emotional
• acknowledge your personality
• don’t evaluate yourself only by
students’ satisfaction
• remember the importance of both
support and challenge
• recognize and accept your power
• view yourself a helper of learning
• don’t trust what you’ve just read

35. managing your institution’s attention

36. “on the balcony” of
an institution
• develop reflective practice
• pay attention to the whole of
the curriculum
• “eyes of the mind and eyes of
the heart”

37. Figure 3.2: Reflective Matrix: Spectrum of Reflective Practice in Seminary Teaching.
Faculty talk of teaching
only in disparaging
ways.
Teaching talk is
generally nervous,
critical, and for
summative purposes.
Teaching talk is tentative
and informal, but there
is faculty interest in it.
Teaching talk moves
across boundaries and is
formative.
Teaching talk is
generative, shared, and
energizing.
Theology is key arbiter;
closed canon forms
basis of truth.
Theological
commitments are
voiced only in terms of
guild expertise.
Theological frames
are one among many
but allowed into
conversation.
Theological
commitments form
center of curriculum
and invite conversation.
Theological
commitments
support openness in
learning and seeking
transformation.
Faculty are all powerful
in the institution;
students are perceived
as a necessary evil.
Faculty and students act
independently and in
isolation.
Faculty and students
collaborate informally,
with faculty taking the
lead.
Faculty and students
work in teams with
each other and other
constituencies.
Structural roles blur
as the same person
inhabits different roles
in different projects.
Student role is strictly
defined as novice.
Student role is
subordinate to faculty, a
learner who consumes
information.
Students may inhabit
multiple roles—novice,
skilled practitioner,
researcher.
Students have multiple
roles, may be learning
partners with faculty.
Students are co-learners
with faculty and other
constituencies, may
be pursuing degrees,
continuing education,
or simply learning for its
own sake.
Less Reflective More Reflective

38. attend to the whole
curriculum
• what is the overall arc of the
degree programs within which
you teach?
• what are the explicit, the
implicit, and the null curricula?
• where are the feedback loops,
the places of iterative and
generative assessment?
• how do your classes interact
with other classes in the
curriculum? where is the
harmony? where is the
discord?

39. eyes of the heart and
eyes of the mind
• shared governance
• room for discerning patterns
and developing relational trust
• sufficient differentiation (cf.
Gordon Smith)

40. attend to ideas from other venues, look for
patterns

43. “When I came to you, brothers and sisters,
proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with
sublimity of words or of wisdom. For I resolved to
know nothing while I was with you except Jesus
Christ and him crucified.”
!
1 Cor 2:1-6

44. “But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it
may be made clear that this extraordinary
power belongs to God and does not come from us.”
!
2 Cor 4:7-15

45. a conversation process
• core public agreement
• one question in each of three rounds
• brief silence before each person (allows you to ponder
what was said, and prepare for the next speaking)

46. core public agreement
• Speak for oneself; Use ‘I statements.’ Own and offer your thoughts and
feelings honestly; avoid grand pronouncements or stating positions of others
• Practice respect in speaking and listening; accept that others may have
different views, without needing to debate or set them straight
• Be brief in comments; honor timeframes and refrain from interrupting
• Listen carefully, especially when something is hard to accept; suspend
judgment
• Respect confidentiality: After the conversation, do not attach names to
comments made without permission
• Allow people to pass, or pass for now, if they are not ready or willing to
respond to a question
Respectful Conversations project

47. three questions
• what in your experience as a newly-tenured professor
influences your perspectives on the topic of theological
education?
• when you think about teaching and learning, what
matters most to you?
• within your own perspective, what questions do you still
wrestle with?

48. background resources
• Adaptive Action, Eoyang and Holladay (Stanford University
Press, 2013)
• The Courage to Teach, Palmer (Jossey-Bass, 2007)
• Radical Rules for Schools: Adaptive Action for Complex
Change, Patterson, Holladay and Eoyang (Human Systems
Dynamics Institute Press, 2012)
• The Skillful Teacher, Brookfield (Jossey-Bass, 2006)
• Understanding by Design, Wiggins and McTighe (Pearson,
2005)

49. citations
• illumination to John 1:1-14, St. John’s Bible (http://blog.seeingtheword.org/?tag=word-
made-flesh)
• Daniel Aleshire, Earthen Treasures: Hopeful Reflection on the Work and Future of
Theological Schools (Eerdmans, 2008)
• Patricia Killen quoted in the Faith&Leadership blog: http://
www.faithandleadership.com/features/articles/the-wabash-way
• Willie James Jennings, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race
(Yale University Press, 2010)
• Glenda Eoyang, quoted on the web: http://www.csh.umn.edu/wsh/Leadership/
adaptiveaction/index.htm
• Dykstra on evaluation: http://www.christianleaders.org/MS360/evaluation.htm
• epistemological diagrams from The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer

50. citations, continued
• “authorship learning” diagram: http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/constructionism-
reborn/
• graphic of enduring understanding: http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/teaching-for-
enduring-understanding/35243
• complimentary rules comic: http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?
u=4d03b90f9fff26c211dc4eb54&id=77743fd6c4
• For better or for worse comic (http://www.fborfw.com/)
• table of traditional vs. collaborative leadership: http://www.business2community.com/
leadership/understanding-future-work-8-traits-collaborative-leadership-infographic-0697429#!
zrLIg
• table of fields of attention: http://www.blog.ottoscharmer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/
Fig-4.png
• all other photos by Mary E. Hess (http://meh.religioused.org/web/Home.html)

51. more info:
mhess@luthersem.edu
http://meh.religioused.org/web/Home.html