Developing your teaching practice in Islamic Studies

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Developing your teaching practice in Islamic
Studies

• Dr Deirdre Burke
• Course Leader Religious Studies,
• University of Wolverhampton
• Deirdre.burke_at_wlv.ac.uk

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Session contenthttp//www.humbox.ac.uk/1444/

• Changes
• Phenomenology
• First-hand contacts
• Technology
• Pedagogy

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Changing times

• the times they are achangin!
• 1967 Ist department of Religious Studies
  Lancaster
• Religious Education in the school curriculum
• - 1971 School Council Working Paper 36
• 20 years for curriculum change to filter
  through
• 1988 Education Reform Act
• 2010 Reform of Higher Education and student
  finance

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Times have changed

• Students from all faith/ belief backgrounds study
  religion/ employed as teachers
• Phenomenological approach to religions
• Faith literacy valued by many employers
• Incitement to religious hatred monitoring
  Islamophobic/ antisemitic acts

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Changes experiences teaching Islam

• Islam in School Textbooks
• Muslims in South Yorkshire guidance for
  teachers/
• faith trails
• Wolverhampton Inter Faith Network
• Faith Guides
• English Heritage

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Phenomenology

• Underpinning method for approaching religion in
  the classroom
• Epoche see from
  perspective
• Eidectic vision of believer
• Empathy
• Methodological skepticism/ atheism

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Case Study

• http//eportfolio.wlv.ac.uk/viewasset.aspx?oid192
  7100typewebfolio
• Critical essay on non-Muslim biographies of the
  Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.)

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Information literacy

• Quality of discernment CARS
• - Credibility
• Accuracy
• Relevance
• Support
• Emic (insider) / etic (outsider) sources
• Case Study Biographies of the Prophet Muhammad
  (p.b.u.h.)
• Awareness of perceived weaknesses
• Assess Western biographies against emic criteria

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Uses of technology

• HumBox Open Education Resources
• Muslims in Wolverhampton Collection
  http//humbox.ac.uk/1444/
• Opportunity to share resources
• Handouts
• PowerPoints
• Media resources
• Peer Review- can add comments, share adaptations,
  suggestions, developments.

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Pedagogy supporting learning from tutor feedback

• Feedback collection in Humbox http//humbox.ac.uk
  /2333
• Linked webfolio http//eportfolio.wlv.ac.uk/viewa
  sset.aspx?oid2211482typewebfolio

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Making written feedback more effective
Tutors providing feedback
how can we make it easier for students to
understand our comments and act on them?
Students using tutor feedback
Text
what strategies can students use to unpack
feedback and take actions to develop skills?
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How can we help students get more out of feedback?
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• Stephani, 1998
• students want information on
• how to develop their work.
• Students often fail to follow up tutor feedback
  because they dont know what to do with it (Burke
  2007).
• This process can help to make transparent the
  academic conventions that tutors may take for
  granted (Lillis Turner, 2001 66).
• use of subject specific examples helps students
  see how skills requirements for planning,
  structuring and referencing look within their own
  discipline.
• Linked webfolio The Study of Islam
  http//eportfolio.wlv.ac.uk/viewasset.aspx?oid192
  7100typewebfolio

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• Template provides a way of structuring and
  recording tutorials
• The learning need identified in the essay
  feedback is identified
• discussion with student indicates their
  understanding of this learning need
• follow-up
• information
• online tutorials
• Exemplars
• Hyperlink added
• form emailed.

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Lecturing/ teaching careers options

• Higher Education time of change/ cutbacks/
• See if there are options to undertake a course at
  your university for a PG Cert in HE, such
  qualifications are required for new lecturers in
  higher education.
• There is a teaching practice element in such
  courses, and you may be able to negotiate some
  teaching (even if it is unpaid).

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School Teaching

• You need to have appropriate subject knowledge
  for a curriculum subject to qualify for a PGCE
  course. It is worth contacting providers for
  guidance on how to develop your subject
  knowledge. Religious Education- one year
  conversion course covering main religious
  traditions
• PGCE (Post-Graduate Certificate in Education)
  http//www.gttr.ac.uk/
• Graduate Teacher Program http//www.tda.gov.uk/ge
  t-into-teaching/teacher-training-options/gtp/Searc
  h.aspx

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• Burke, D. (1986) An Analysis of School Textbooks
  on the life of the Prophet Muhammad and eth
  Quran, in A. Ashraf. (ed.) Resources for the
  Teaching of Islam in British Schools. Pp. 67- 89.
  Cambridge The Islamic Academy.
• Chapter drawing on research for MA to assess the
  suitability of textbooks, considering factual
  accuracy, and appropriateness of presentation.
• Burke, D. (2007a) Engaging students in personal
  development planning profiles, skills
  development and acting on feedback. Discourse
  Learning and Teaching in Philosophical and
  Religious Studies, 6(2) 10742.
• Report on personal development planning approach
  with Religious Studies students, which focused on
  the benefits of resubmitting assignments in the
  light of tutor feedback.
• Burke, D. (2007b) Getting the most out of
  feedback, in D. Nutt and J. Tidd (eds) European
  First Year Experience Conference April 2006,
  Teesside, University of Teesside 3649.
• An exploration of the benefits for student
  learning from tutor feedback by way of the Using
  Feedback Effectively form.
• Burke, D. (2008) Using electronic sources to help
  students get more out of tutor feedback, in J.
  Pieterick, M. Lawton and R. Ralph (eds) European
  First Year Experience Conference 2008, University
  of Wolverhampton.
• Report on the use of hyperlinks in tutor feedback
  to direct students to materials to enable
  students follow up issues in feedback.
• Burke, D. (2009a) Strategies for using feedback
  that students bring to their degree course an
  analysis of first year perceptions at the start
  of a course in Humanities. Assessment and
  Evaluation in Higher Education, 34(1) 4150.
• Report on induction research with a large cohort
  of humanities students, which identified the
  range of starting points in relation to
  understandings of tutor feedback and its place in
  student learning.
• Burke, D. Pieterick, J. (2010) Giving Students
  Effective Written Feedback. Maidenhead
  McGraw-Hill Open University Press.
• Text for lecturers to explore their feedback
  practices, with an aim to making feedback more
  effective for student learning- in both provision
  by tutors and use by students.