Teaching Religion to Adolescents: Creative Strategies and Best Practices
Fee: $60
Five Weeks
featuring videos with master religious educators - Jared Dees, Max Engle, Thomas Groome, Patrick Manning, Theresa O'Keefe, Susan Reynolds
Young people today are growing up into a world making complex demands of them: in school, the marketplace, personal relationships, and in the use of technology. Join us to explore the developing capacities and needs of adolescents. Draw from Scripture and Church teaching to increase your skills as a teacher (or parent) for helping teens understand and deepen their faith, strengthening them as they rise up to respond to the world around them. This course equips catechists and religion teachers with the resources and strategies needed to teach adolescents about the Catholic faith with inspiration and confidence. Drawing upon experts in theology, developmental psychology, and religious education, the course addresses pressing questions: Who are my students? What should I teach? and How do I teach it effectively?
Topics:
Introductory Week
Week 1: Who Are My Students?
Week 2: What Should I Teach?
Week 3: How Should I Teach? - Part 1. Adolescent Appropriate Strategies
Week 4: How Should I Teach? - Part 2. Holistic Student Formation
Time Commitment:
A participant can expect to spend an average of 3-4 hours each week. This commitment includes both preparation and interaction online.
Teaching Religion to Children: Creative Strategies and Best Practices
Fee: $60
Five Weeks
featuring video with Dr. Thomas H. Groome and master teachers; articles by Jane E. Ayer and Melinda Brown Donovan.
Sharing the treasure of Christian faith with the next generation can be a real challenge. It’s not enough for children to learn doctrine, but they need to find meaning in the faith for their lives .Focused on the elementary and junior high catechist and religious educator, this course is based on leading scholarship and practical experience from Thomas H. Groome and Jane E. Ayer. You will explore teaching as a vocation, the various types of learners, different approaches to presenting religious education material, and ways to create sacred space and pray with children in the classroom. This course is not dependent on any catechetical textbook series.
Topics:
Introductory Week
Week 1: Teaching as a Vocation and Modeling Jesus's Pedagogy
Week 2: Pedagogical Models and Being a Reflective Teacher
Week 3: Honoring the Senses and the Theory of Multiple Intelligences
Week 4: Creating Sacred Space and Ways of Praying
Time Commitment:
A participant can expect to spend an average of approximately 3-4 hours each week. This commitment includes both the assigned reading and interaction online.
The Engaged Parish
Jul 20, 2022 - Aug 23, 2022
5-Week Course
Overview
This course was previously titled "Adult Faith Formation for a Vibrant Church." Featuring video with Thomas Groome, Theresa O’Keefe, and Hosffman Ospino
Working for a more vibrant faith community? Adult faith formation plays a vital role in animating the local church. Yet, it often suffers relative neglect. This course is for anyone on a parish council or other ministry with adults. It explores the ways in which faith formation can happen anywhere members work together in the life of the church through evangelization, catechesis, and conversation about things that really matter. It considers the cultural issues of diversity in the parish and post-modernity in the greater society as the context for deepening adults' engagement in the faith community. It also reflects on the communities of practice that make up the parish, and how to leverage them in helping individuals grow in their faith.
This course has a required text: Jane E. Regan. Forming A Community of Faith: A Guide to Success in Adult Faith Formation Today. Twenty-Third Publications, 2014
Topics
- Introductory Week: The Contemporary Context for Adult Faith Formation
- Week 1: Connecting Evangelization and Adult Faith Formation
- Week 2: Key Themes in the Catechetical Vision
- Week 3: The Skill of Engaging Adults in Conversation
- Week 4: Community of Practice: A New Perspective of Parish Life