The Outrageous Idea of Christian Teaching

Abstract

There are thousands of Christian professors, many of whom claim “Christian” as their primary identity and teaching as their primary responsibility. Much of the current literature about the integration of faith and learning focuses on the differences between Christian scholarship and Christian teaching. As a result, few books explore how Christian identity, or a particular Christian identity (e.g., Baptist, Anglican), shapes teaching. In addition, few works examine what identity-influenced teaching outside of one’s professional identity looks like in the contemporary university. One distinguishing feature of this book is that it addresses both those subjects by exploring responses of Christian professors to questions about how them. By drawing upon a mixed-methods survey of over 2,300 Christian professors, this book reveals the wide range of wisdom that contemporary professors offer about how they practice faith-informed teaching. The second unique quality of this book is that it situates the findings of this study within the wider scholarly conversation about the role of identity-informed teaching. It describes the tensions within this conversation between those who advocate for restraining the influence of one’s extraprofessional identities and those who, in the name of authenticity, promote the full integration of one’s primary identities into the classroom. It then sets forth an original position that draws from empirical research to provide a nuanced approach to this issue. Overall, the book charts new ground regarding how professors think about Christian teaching in particular, as well as how professors should approach identity-informed teaching in general.

K-12 Christian school teachers’ perspectives on faith and learning

“…K-12 teachers in this study reported more influence of faith on what students learn (course content) than on how they learn (instructional strategies). A similar content bias has been reported in Christian higher education (Glanzer and Alleman, 2019;Smith, 2018;Smith et al, 2014Smith et al, , 2021.…”

“…In light of the literature from higher education, especially the CCCU study by Glanzer and Alleman (2019), it is surprising that K-12 teachers' responses did not differ in any statistically significant way when grouped by theological tradition. I will suggest three possible explanations.…”

“…Despite the modern Christian school movement's approximately 70-year history and its extensive theoretical literature on faith and learning, there are relatively few large studies (i.e., with data drawn from populations approximating 1000 or more) on faculty perspectives regarding what it means to teach Christianly. Most of these have been of Christian college and university faculty (Cosgrove, 2012;Glanzer and Alleman, 2019;Joeckel and Chesnes, 2012a;Lyon and Beaty, 1999) or of papers published in academic journals (Smith et al, 2014). Cosgrove (2012: 325) gathered faith-and-learning data from professors in seven schools affiliated with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), one school from each of seven theological traditions: Anabaptist/Friends, Baptist, Churches of Christ/Christian Churches, Holiness/Methodist, Interdenominational/Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Reformed.…”

Assessing Christian learning: Towards a practices-based approach to faith, vocation, and assessment

“…As we turn to the question of what kinds of practices might count as embodiments of faith and sites where schools and students interact, we intersect with a significant body of work on the nature of social practices, Christian practices, and their intersection with educational practices (e.g. Cooling and Green, 2015; Dykstra, 2005; Glanzer and Alleman, 2019; Griffiths, 1999; Lave and Wenger, 1991; MacIntyre, 1984; Peachey, 2020; DI Smith and Smith, 2011; DI Smith et al., 2020; Wenger, 1999; Volf, 2002). As framed in this literature, practices are not the less intellectual half of a theory-practice or a belief-practice divide.…”

Thinking theologically about student success: Higher education with a higher calling

“…In short, we worry that administrators responsible for student success at Christian colleges and universities (some of whom were included in the study of Christian student affairs professionals) have yet to allow their faith to fully animate their approach to student success (Davis, 2017;Glanzer et al, 2020;Glanzer and Alleman, 2019). When something is animated, it is brought to life (think of the vision of the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37, Christ's resurrection, or our own necessary experience of being "born again").…”