Teaching

As of August 1, 2010, I have served as Senior Lecturer of New Testament at the College of Emmanuel and St. Chad in Saskatoon, SK. Student evaluations from courses that I have completed (Galatians, The Gospel of Matthew, and Biblical Theology) are available upon request from the College's Registrar, Colleen Walker (colleen.walker@usask.ca).

During my time at Duke University, I was able to take advantage of opportunities for professional development. I have taken part in Duke's program on Responsible Conduct in Research and have taken courses on "Instructional Uses of Technology" and "Teaching in Religion." Please click here for my general teaching statement, which I have developed in light of the knowledge I acquired in these courses.

I was also given numerous teaching opportunities at Duke Divinity School during my doctoral studies. I worked as a Teacher's Assistant for Anathea Portier-Young, Ellen F. Davis (Introduction to the Old Testament), Joel Marcus and Susan Eastman (Introduction to the New Testament). Additionally, I taught two courses (Readings in Biblical Hebrew) and tutored Introductory Hebrew at the Divinity School. These positions provided me with the opportunity to lecture, guide classroom discussions, and evaluate students. At the bottom of this page you can read a number of anonymous comments from students I taught at Duke Divinity School.

I also had the opportunity to teach two courses in Introductory Hellenistic Greek at the Divinity School. I designed the first course, NT 103, around William Mounce's Basics of Greek Grammar. Supplementing Mounce, I laid heavy emphasis on the memorization of noun and verb paradigms. In class, we would go over these paradigms, and take up any questions students had on previous assignments. For many students, this course was their first experience of acquiring another language. Thus, I worked hard to make my lectures as accessible as possible. My student evaluations (click here) demonstrate the success of this approach. I designed the second course, NT 104, to immerse students in as much Hellenistic Greek as possible. Students were required to prepare roughly 25-30 verses a week, which we would then go over in class. By introducing them to the Greek of the canonical gospels, Acts, Paul, the Johannine epistles, and Revelation, as well as a number of passages from the Septuagint, my intention was to leave my students with the confidence to read and translate any portion of the New Testament and Septuagint. Please click here for student evaluations of this course.

Finally, I had the opportunity to teach an undergraduate course entitled "Introduction to Religious Studies" at Elon University (situated in Elon, NC) in the Spring of 2010. I used Gary E. Kessler's Studying Religion: An Introduction through Cases, in conjunction with articles, primary literature, and videos (both documentaries and pop culture), to introduce my students to the academic study of Religion. I found that students were able to engage in learning more actively through the use of multimedia and found that they stimulated thoughtful and energetic conversations and debates. Please click here for a full report of my student evaluations.*


*Elon University does not conduct course evaluations in the Spring Term. Consequently, I created my own evaluation on the website SurveyMonkey, which allowed students to anonymously fill out a brief survey on the course. Out of the 31 students in the course, 19 contributed to the survey.

 

Student Evaluations for Precepting:

  • Preceptor, Introduction to the Old Testament (OT 11), Fall 2006: Matt was an awesome preceptor! Insightful, helpful and showed a real concern for students. Helped us understand the various OT interpretative methods a great deal. He was enthusiastic and fair, always encouraged dialogue, and made the preceptorials something to look forward to.

  • Preceptor, Introduction to the New Testament (NT 18), Spring 2007: Discussions were great and Matt was especially good at knowing when to bring us back to the main topic from the tangents we sometimes took. Thanks for all the comments on my papers and how fast you got them back to me.

  • Instructor, Readings in Biblical Hebrew (OT 2A), Fall 2007: Having an excellent grasp of the Hebrew language, Matt is able to work easily with students at all skill levels. He does a great job asking helpful questions and explaining why the language functions as it does. Matt is incredibly patient and personable. He connects easily with his students. I always look forward to Hebrew Readings!

  • Instructor, Readings in Biblical Hebrew (OT 2B), Spring 2008: Matt is a very patient instructor. He's very attentive to the grammatical, literary, and theological details of the text. He's organized, on-time, and a good teacher. It's clear that he's excited about the course material for its own sake. Matt did a great job.

  • Preceptor, Introduction to the Old Testament (OT 11), Fall 2008: Matt did a great job drawing out discussion, asking good questions, and making us think about things in new, different, and challenging ways. I also really appreciated that he returned papers promptly and with helpful comments.

  • Preceptor, Introduction to the New Testament (NT 18), Spring 2009: Matt has a thorough knowledge of the New Testament and was good at leading us in our weekly discussions. It was great to have very specific instructions on how to write the exegetical papers. Thanks for pushing us to be better writers and thinkers!