Freebies from Stephen Brookfield
Posted by Mary Hinkle Shore on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 11:03 PM
Most faculty and many students at Luther Seminary know the work of Dr. Stephen Brookfield, of the University of St. Thomas. For several years, Stephen has worked with pre-tenure teaching and learning groups at Luther, and in the last year, he and Mary Hess have co-edited Teaching Reflectively in Theological Contexts. What you may not know is that Stephen has provided dozens of teaching and learning resources on his website.
One of my favorite resources is Stephen's PowerPoint on Discussion as a Way of Teaching (.ppt file here). It is not really a great PowerPoint presentation (in fact, it's pretty much a wall of words). Don't be put off by that. Print the slides, and read through them. You'll find dozens of easily accessible ideas for using discussion in creative ways. Whether you are a faculty member looking for better precept discussions, or a student who needs help getting discussion going or keeping it focused in church groups, you will find techniques worth trying here.
