Christian Studies in the Real
World
Vicki Schilling
Lutheran Education Queensland
The challenge of engaging
students
Student engagement is the core of learning
in the 3rd millennium.
Townsend & Otero, 1999
To be engaging, teaching must be relevant.
To be relevant, it must be related to the
context in which students live.
Relevant contexts include:
• Things in students’ own experience
• Problems they know and care about (in
their community and wider world)
• Personal interest topics
Learning must
• be relevant
• be purposeful
• broaden and deepen students’ understanding of the
world
• be active, interactive and collaborative
• help students make connections
• have the potential for genuine inquiry
• involve students in authentic decision making and selfdirection
• have positive social aspects
• build student satisfaction, mastery and growth
• deal with multiple perspectives simultaneously and
encourage students’ sensitivity to these
• cause students to reflect and take action
Globally significant topics are those
that:
• have significance and meaning for all
students, regardless of their backgrounds
or beliefs
• promote awareness of the human
condition and understanding of the
commonality of human experience,
expression and needs
• Embed Christian Studies content/concepts
in meaningful, real-life contexts
Signposts for global significance
Does my unit:
1. open students’ eyes to the wider (and inner) world,
developing knowledge, dispositions and skills to interact
sensitively, empathetically and competently with
others?
2. begin by exploring this common ground collaboratively,
from the multiple perspectives of students’ experiences
and backgrounds?
3. place learning in a meaningful context by beginning
with students’ own understanding and experience?
4. clearly have value beyond the classroom?
5. use facts and content knowledge to illuminate broader
concepts and ideas?
6. require student ‘uncoverage’ of appropriately complex
and abstract ideas and concepts?
7. have an authentic purpose and outcome?
8. lead to action as a response to learning?
What
How
The ‘what’
• Creating close connections between
curriculum content and real life contexts of
relevance to students
• Use current issues and a wide range of
sources and resources
• Actively listen to students and build upon
their questions and interests
The ‘how’
• Develop an inclusive classroom atmosphere and allow
for all to participate
• Incorporate student-centred learning approaches
• Maximize opportunities for experiential (concrete)
learning
• Plan for cooperative learning and interaction
• Explicitly encourage and enable the consideration of
multiple perspectives – explicitly teach skills in thinking
critically, creatively, empathically, and responding
sensitively and clearly
• Actively encourage action as a response to learning
• Consider religion neutral exercises – active experiences
designed to make connections to an aspect of religious
experience, practice or spirituality - these exercises help
students understand the underlying meaning of the
practices or experiences
Some starting points
• Universal commonality
• An issue/topic of
relevance
• Popular culture and
media
• Global perspectives
Your turn…
• Select one of the options of Christian
Studies topics given.
• With a partner (or small group)
brainstorm ways of contextualising this
concept in order to be globally
significant.
• Refer to the question frame
to guide your discussion.
Relevant
How is this unit embedded in the
world of students’ lives?
How is this topic relevant to all
students?
In what ways could you
incorporate students’ questions?
Engaging
How might you get your students
emotionally engaged?
What real-world experiences (and
resources) could you plan for?
What opportunities are there for
real collaboration and interaction?
Connected
How might you make use of
students’ prior understandings and
experiences?
What different perspectives may
come to light and how would you
accommodate them? What
perspectives would you need to
share?
How can you make use of realworld experiences, people and
resources?
Challenging
Does the unit offer opportunities
for genuine and deep inquiry?
Do students have real opportunity
for decision making and selfdirection within the unit?
Will this unit meaningfully build
upon students’ understanding and
growth as a learner?
Significant
How might this unit illuminate
broader understandings about the
commonality of human experience?
What opportunities could be
incorporated that build your
students’ understandings of people,
places and lives beyond their own?
Are there inviting opportunities for
students to take some kind of action
as a response to their learning?
Useful resources
• TEAR foundation (www.tear.org.au)
• Curriculum Corporation Global Education
website
(http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au
/globaled/page1.html)
• Global Pespectives and associated books
• Global Learning Centre
(http://www.uq.net.au/~zzglcent/)
• Aid Organisations and NGOs
• The Global Classroom (Townsend & Otero,
1999)
Students each bring their unique worldview
shaped by their experience of life and prior
learning. The pedagogy of Christian Studies
must open doors that connect the content
of the framework with the learner’s world –
both the inner life and perceptions of the
external world. If learning is to be
personally meaningful it is imperative that
students own the journey of discovery, that
they can ask their questions, that they can
articulate their growing understanding and
that they are free to choose how they will
respond to the ideas and concepts they
encounter.
Students and teachers acknowledge,
respect and interact with the multiple
journeys of discovery present in the
learning environment. Students are
challenged to see themselves as
members of various communities –
classroom, family, church, local, global
– from whom they can learn and draw
inspiration and to whom they can
contribute and make a difference.
For me, one of the basic and fundamental purposes
of education and educational institutions in the
21st century is the building of a ‘good society’
through the difficult process of transforming the
‘human race’ into a ‘human family’… Our task as
educators is to guide them beyond the barriers of
culture, across the shores of tradition, through
the fears of the present, to the ‘good society’ and
the family that embraces all humanity. If there
is any community of people and institutions that
will prepare the next generation for 21st century
citizenship, it is none other than the teachers
and our educational institutions.
Dr. Ishmael Noko, Lutheran World Federation, 2004