Online Course Lectures in Old Testament
Mar 20th, 2009 by Bryan
I have begun listening to Thea Portier-Young’s course lectures for the Spring 2007 section of OT12, which I gather is the second semester of their OT introduction. I had a short conversation with her after the syllabus workshop at the Southeast SBL meeting last week, and our approaches to teaching the OT is very similar. I am excited to hear how she handles these lectures, and I commend it to you.
Duke has put a lot of material online through their iTunesU page and in their Dukecast web application (which is a bit janky). I am impressed with their efforts, and wish that everyone would do the same and more, including Furman. Also, I commend Prof. Portier-Young for having the confidence to put audio recordings of her lectures online. University professors form learning and teaching communities, but 95% of what we do in the classroom is totally individual and private. Some people like this, which is part (I said part) of the objection to RateMyProfessors, but I think we would all benefit from more transparency and sharing.
More online college courses can be found at The DIY Scholar, including ones about the Bible.
Dr. Portier-Young was a teacher of mine when I was getting my master’s at Duke. It was in her class that I first came to my present understanding of the connection between promise/blessing and deception in the Jacob cycle (and have since moved beyond that to look at the theological questions such notices conjure up). I did not take OT intro from her, but I must confess that my Hebrew is at the level it currently is because of her (unforgiving!!) pressing of us in class—for that, I am thankful.
I am glad you had the opportunity to speak with her. If you correspond with her again, be it in person or via email, please pass on my greetings to her.
I am enjoying Dr. Portier-Young’s lectures very much.
How much do Duke students use and/or benefit from the iTunesU and Dukecast material? Do professors actively integrate the technology into courses?
When I was there 3-4 years ago, these materials were not even available (at least not to my knowledge).
For Master’s level students it is probably less relevant; I know the year I started at Duke (2004) all the incoming freshmen–but no graduate students!!–got free ipods. So, they may have used them then . . . but not to my knowledge in the upper level classes.
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