Lecturing in the UK
Today was my last day of lectures on the Gospel of John at Birmingham Christian College. Even if it has cut into my research time by the equivalent of about one day a week, this has been a rewarding and memorable experience which I would gladly do over.
In many ways this was very similar to my teaching experience back in Canada. The Gospel of John course has a good level of academic rigour appropriate to undergraduate education, as it is a Level 3 class for a BA in Theology validated by the University of Wales. I thus taught the course at the same level as I have taught a similar third-year course at Prairie back in Canada, and I found the general academic level of the students to be roughly on par with my third- or fourth-year students back home. Also, with both this College and my College in Canada being evangelical Christian colleges, the general outlook of the students is very similar with the same sorts of questions being raised and issues being discussed.
There were, however, some notable differences. Having ten weeks of two-hour lectures here compared with thirteen weeks of two 75-minute lectures back in Canada necessitated a different approach to the scope and sequence of the material. This meant we could not do as much in-depth exegetical focus on specific passages in the Gospel, as it only left time to introduce and engage the standard critical issues and theological themes of the Gospel. To a certain extent this was alleviated by the fact that the class here was small--only five students--which allowed us to move more quickly through some material and dig more deeply into other material.
I'm still trying to make sense of the term system here, with three terms--two teaching terms and a third for "revision and assessment"--as compared with two semesters back home. Also, some courses are assessed by a term essay, some by an examination, and some by both, whereas in Canada one might find any combination of these plus possibly any number of smaller assignments and tests throughout each course. I'm also still trying to navigate my way through the marking system here--each course essay above Level 1 is marked at least twice, by two different people (at BCC there is also an external reader from the University of Wales)--whereas in Canada essays for regular courses are only marked by the instructor (or assistant) and multiple readers are normally only used for larger projects such as an honours thesis.
To others involved in academic instruction I heartily recommend taking a similar opportunity to teach in another country. To everyone at Birmingham Christian College, thank you for the opportunity. And to my students in the course--the raison d'être of teaching--thank you for your attentive listening, your thoughtful discussions, and eating all our chili dogs and reading all our children's books when you came over for lunch.
In many ways this was very similar to my teaching experience back in Canada. The Gospel of John course has a good level of academic rigour appropriate to undergraduate education, as it is a Level 3 class for a BA in Theology validated by the University of Wales. I thus taught the course at the same level as I have taught a similar third-year course at Prairie back in Canada, and I found the general academic level of the students to be roughly on par with my third- or fourth-year students back home. Also, with both this College and my College in Canada being evangelical Christian colleges, the general outlook of the students is very similar with the same sorts of questions being raised and issues being discussed.There were, however, some notable differences. Having ten weeks of two-hour lectures here compared with thirteen weeks of two 75-minute lectures back in Canada necessitated a different approach to the scope and sequence of the material. This meant we could not do as much in-depth exegetical focus on specific passages in the Gospel, as it only left time to introduce and engage the standard critical issues and theological themes of the Gospel. To a certain extent this was alleviated by the fact that the class here was small--only five students--which allowed us to move more quickly through some material and dig more deeply into other material.
I'm still trying to make sense of the term system here, with three terms--two teaching terms and a third for "revision and assessment"--as compared with two semesters back home. Also, some courses are assessed by a term essay, some by an examination, and some by both, whereas in Canada one might find any combination of these plus possibly any number of smaller assignments and tests throughout each course. I'm also still trying to navigate my way through the marking system here--each course essay above Level 1 is marked at least twice, by two different people (at BCC there is also an external reader from the University of Wales)--whereas in Canada essays for regular courses are only marked by the instructor (or assistant) and multiple readers are normally only used for larger projects such as an honours thesis.
To others involved in academic instruction I heartily recommend taking a similar opportunity to teach in another country. To everyone at Birmingham Christian College, thank you for the opportunity. And to my students in the course--the raison d'être of teaching--thank you for your attentive listening, your thoughtful discussions, and eating all our chili dogs and reading all our children's books when you came over for lunch.
posted by Michael Pahl at
Thursday, December 15, 2005
1 Comments:
Glad to hear that your time at BCC was worth it. I found the same problem - I wished I could spend more time in the text but had to rush through so much critical stuff. I was also scratching my head at the 3rd "revision" term thing. I get the feeling that undergrads have it a little easier than those of us in North America, at least with the course work. Perhaps not in other areas.
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Michael, at 10:17 a.m.
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