These are slides which accompanied a presentation I gave to the new faculty roundtable, sponsored by the Association of Theological Schools, held on October 13, 2018 in Chicago.

1. New faculty roundtable: online learning
13 October 2018
Association of Theological Schools
Chicago, IL
Mary E. Hess

2. Chicago lies within the traditional homelands of the
people of the Council of Three Fires, the Ojibwe,
Potawatomi, and Odawa.
This was also a site of trade, travel, gathering and
healing for more than a dozen other Native tribes,
and today is still home to over 100,000 tribal
members in the state of Illinois.
We are grateful to have the opportunity to learn
and to work in this community, on this territory, and
we remain mindful of broken covenants and the
need to strive to make right with all our relations.

4. let’s start with some context… raise your hand if:
• you’ve ever designed an online curriculum (more than one course in
a sequence)
• you’ve ever worked with an instructional designer to develop an
online course
• you’ve ever designed and taught an online course
• you’ve ever been a student in an online course
• you’ve ever participated in an online conversation (through facebook,
a weblog, etc.)
• you’ve ever read something online

5. raise your hand if…
• you’re fluent in more than one language (meaning, you
can read, write, and converse)
• you’ve ever lived for more than six months in a country
other than the one you were born in
• you’ve worshipped with a religious community other than
your own
• you’ve read the Bible, at least in part

6. context matters, and we are living through a period
of context collapse; the skills of code switching
and intercultural engagement are crucial

10. so what is “online learning”?

11. let’s start with some definitions
• ATS on distance education (“distance education is a mode of
education in which a course is offered without students and
instructors being in the same location”)
• synchronous and asynchronous modes
• residential and residential intensive
• hybrid (“does not meet not count as meeting a residency requirement
unless ‘the majority of instructor-directed learning occurs in situations
where both faculty and students are in person on the school’s main
campus or at an extension site approved to offer the full degree’”)
• hyflex, flipped, blended
ATS

12. so what is “online learning” in your immediate
contexts?

13. we are in a time of great change and transition,
with many competing commitments

14. let’s pause for an experience: log into one of your
own courses at your school’s LMS using your
phone, tablet, or other mobile device (no laptops,
please) and show it to people at your table; if your
school does not have an LMS, that’s useful to know;
it is also useful to know how it works in mobile
formats; if you do not now have such a course
space yet, why not? (simply log in to the main page)

15. how easy was it to do so? what obstacles did you
run into (if any)?

19. three conceptual frames may help
• context collapse
• authority, authenticity, agency
• universal design for learning

20. we are living in a time of context collapse

22. a primary task is to re-contextualize — you will
note that much current research across the various
disciplines of theological education has to do with
contextualization, or re-contextualizing

23. and we need to do this work at a time when some
very fundamental dynamics are shifting

24. the three most dynamic and compelling shifts that are
happening in the middle of digital media have to do
with how we experience authority, how we
encounter authenticity, and how we engage
agency

25. that means that how we think about what we’re
doing in supporting learning is changing

26. instead of “covering a field” we are increasingly
speaking about “uncovering” or “discovering”

28. authority build authority don’t assume it

29. authenticity know how to draw on experience

30. agency find your spaces

31. one framework that comes from neuroscientific
research in learning is that of “universal design for
learning”

33. so what does this look like in theological education,
and in various online environments?

34. ignite, curate, practice!

35. ignite (engagement) examples
• exploring James Cone’s ideas from The Cross and The
Lynching Tree through the anniversary of Strange Fruit
• glimpsing historical trauma through a piece made by a youth
collective in Idaho
• Reclaiming Jesus (church elders speaking in a time of crisis)
• No Good Reason (Natalie Merchant records a song written by
a teen experiencing homelessness)
• using humor (What kind of an Asian are you?) to explore
micro aggressions

36. curate (representation) examples
• Enter the Bible (a basic biblical site by Luther Seminary)
• the Pluralism Project (Harvard)
• a visualization of Robert Kegan’s orders of consciousness
(Steve Thomason)
• a Racial Justice Bibliography (weblog, in particular)
• a visualization of an argument for a “social Trinity” with the
“fusion of horizons” from Ricoeur (Steve Thomason)
• a visualization of US religious affiliation (Kyle Oliver)

37. practice (action and expression) examples
• wisdom in the age of information (Maria Popova in story)
• a retelling of the story of the woman at the well
• the Washburn Blackbox Acting program (young people
writing their own plays)
• the President sang Amazing Grace (Joan Baez sings a
song by Zoe Mulford)
• Bomba Estéreo - Soy Yo (music video of a young girl’s joy
and resilience)

38. I wish I’d known that …
• teaching in online spaces will change how you teach in typical
residential spaces
• I should check in with students after the first week of class
• it’s better to curate well, than to reinvent the wheel
• small assignments with regular feedback build good learning
relationships — and such relationships are essential in online
spaces
• computer graded open book untimed quizzes are a great way
to aid reading comprehension (and accountability)

39. I wish I’d known that (cont.)…
• learning your LMS is essential (eg. grade capture is really
useful) as is getting on good terms with your support
team (if you have one)
• putting explicit time to engage a course into your
calendar, and then sticking to it, actually eases stress and
helps to document what’s necessary
• finding ways to get feedback along the way helps
everyone (eg. CIQ from Brookfield)
• rubrics are crucial (and a great way to save time)

40. finally, research suggests that seven digital
literacies are particularly important in theological
education — and we can work on these in
whatever spaces we are teaching within

41. Digital literacy toolkit competencies
• navigating hybrid and digital cultures
• convening hybrid and digital community
• maintaining a posture of experimentation
• cultivating a spiritually wise digital habitus
• presenting authentically and pastorally online
• connecting media theory and theological reflection
• creating and curating faith-based media artifacts
toolkit

42. Q & A

43. citations:
Octavia Butler quote (https://www.facebook.com/
photo.php?fbid=10107198550653720&set=a.
10107181579663720.1073741839.13954176&type=
3&theater)
global NGO tech stats (http://techreport.ngo)
authorship learning (http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/
journal/constructionism-reborn/)
connected learning (http://www.teachthought.com/
learning/connected-learning-the-power-of-social-
learning-models/)
enduring understandings (http://chronicle.com/blogs/
profhacker/files/2011/08/enduringunderstanding.png)

44. citations, continued:
mobile phone users in Africa (http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/10/09/
internet-connectivity-seen-as-having-positive-impact-on-life-in-sub-
saharan-africa/pg_2018-10-9_africa-tech-use_0-7/)
networked learning model (http://jarche.com/2016/08/a-network-
perspective/#more-16661)
networked self (https://techknowtools.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/
networked_self_thoughts.png)
zits comic (http://zitscomics.com,19 March 2016)
universal design for learning principles (https://education.ky.gov/
educational/diff/Documents/New%20Guidelines.pdf)
technology adoption rates (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/
2018/05/02/millennials-stand-out-for-their-technology-use-but-older-
generations-also-embrace-digital-life/)

45. for more info:
mhess@religioused.org
meh.religioused.org
slideshare.net/maryhess1