Teaching and Learning

1. Teaching and Learning Welcome to the CCRS@brighton

2. Passing on the good news • Where did we hear the good news? • How? Who was responsible? When? • What did we hear? • What role does evangelisation / catechesis have in our faith life?

3. What questions is this module trying to answer? • How do we do it now? • How should this be done? • To whom? • When? • Whose job is it?

4. Sessions sequence • Learning – faith learning – history – catechesis • Content: what are we passing on? • Delivering catechesis: planning a presentation • Your presentation and feedback

5. Your presentation • A short ‘catechesis’ in the last session • Working in pairs perhaps? • Choose a topic • Find relevant tools • Plan a session and tell us about it • Receive feedback from the rest of us • Could be written up as an assignment

6. You will need: • A Bible • A commentary • A Catechism of the Catholic Church • A developing sense of how adults learn best

7. Your experiences of learning..... • Think of a really good learning experience • What made it good? • ~think of a really awful learning experience. • What made it so bad? • Think / pair/share – then write on the poster

8. So • What constitutes ‘good’ learning?

9. Ways of understanding learning and teaching • Information processing • Social • Personal • Behavioural • + • Reflective • experiential

10. Information processing • People need to make sense of the world • People naturally categorise / classify • We develop data into concepts • We invent a language to communicate this

11. Learning styles • Different versions • assumptions? Warranted? • Can learning be restricted to a ‘style of learning’? • Implications for your teaching

12. Social • People naturally from learning communities • Learning develops through interaction with others • Emphasises group work and group skills

13. Informal learning contexts • Situated learning • A specific context • The development of a specific language • Learning means a movement from the periphery to the centre • E.g. An apprenticeship

14. Cont. • Communities of practice • Communities of people • Learning within this • Building identity within that • Developing meaning within this community • Learning and membership entwined

15. Personal • Begins with the individual • Focuses on self-knowledge and self understanding • Seeks the creative • Aims to achieve confidence, competence and self-worth • Associated with the work of Carl Rogers

16. Emotional intelligence • Daniel Goleman – associated author • ‘Intelligence ‘and ‘competence:’ confused? • Promotes learning – the claim

17. Behaviour • Human beings can correct / modify behaviour • Feedback from failure allows modification • Rewards and threats can be used to stimulate appropriate behaviour

18. Experiential learning • Builds on concrete experience • Which leads to further observation / reflection • Leads to generalisation and abstraction • Leads to testing implications • A spiral process

19. Reflective learning • Practitioners reviewing own practice • A reflective cycle: experience – reflection – amended plan – experience • Important for religious people?

20. Key elements • Words • Definitions • Education or socialisation • History • Tools • What is ‘learning in faith’? • What framework will help you?

21. History • Early Church – Didache (?50-60 AD) • Constantine (312) • Dark Ages (600-1000) • Middle Ages (1000-1450) • Reformation / Counter Reformation (1519 – 1564 +) • 20th century: educational and ecclesiological change • Catechetical movement (1960s +) • 2012 – secularism; anti-authority; anti-church; anti-Christian; symbolic poverty

22. Catechisms • Existed in 8th century – Alcuin • Common format of question – answer • Luther produced a catechism • ‘Penny Catechism’ produced by Charles Borromeo after the Council of Trent 1560+ • Need for orthodox statement of faith • Danger of ‘cementing in stone’

23. Kids v adults • Pedagogy – teaching children • Androgogy – teaching adults • Today adult learning is seen as the priority

24. Evangelisation • Is usually used of an initial pronouncement of the ‘good news’ • But the term ‘new-evangelisation’ is used of those who are Catholic but not evangelised • Kerygma – the basic formula of Christian faith eg the fish • This would be followed by catechesis

25. Catechesis • A very old term • Resurrected recently particularly in the RC Church • Means faith-sharing within a community • Re-echoing or re-telling • Is concerned with maturation of faith

26. Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults • RCIA – now the norm for acceptance of adults into our communities • Template for modern catechesis • Key issues: sponsorship; readiness; learning in community

27. Important things in RCIA • Faith seen as dynamic • Faith journey and faith story important ideas • Staged initiation • Celebration • The community is seen as both the source and expression of faith • Anthropocentric • Christological and Trinitarian • Scriptural

28. Religious education - schooling • Originally all schooling was religious • 19th England: Christianity made a huge contribution to English school until 1988 • ERA 1988 – no confessional RE anymore for state schools • Support for religious pluralism now required • Education about religion – the tolerance agenda • Faith schools within this

29. The task is: • To explore your own experience of faith formation • To find the framework which best describes this • To reflect on this and consider the implications for your parish / school context • To apply these thoughts to your presentation

30. Look at your Catechism • Look at the contents page • Then the different parts • Where are the sections on the creed? • And the section which includes the 10 Commandments? • And the section on prayer? • Where is there material on forgiveness? • Check out some references – abbreviations given on P. xv