For two decades, my teaching has spanned colleges and universities, seminaries, secondary schools, literacy intervention, and teacher development. I am especially interested in how classrooms and organizations cultivate attention, judgment, confidence, and meaningful participation in shared intellectual life. My work in theology and education increasingly focuses on what it takes for people to grow into thoughtful readers, responsible participants in community, and faithful seekers of truth.

Reading my philosophy of teaching
McClain, Teaching Philosophy (2026)

Selected Courses Taught

• Theology and Children’s Literature (undergraduate and seminary level)
• Creation and Evolution
• Medieval Theology
• Christian Ethics (service-learning course)
• Church History
• Protestant Reformation
• Theological Aesthetics
• Introduction to Theology

Pedagogical Commitments

• Participation and Shared Inquiry
  Learning is fundamentally communal. I value discussion-centered classrooms that invite students into embodied and intellectually engaged learning marked by responsible participation, thoughtful dialogue, and collaborative inquiry.
• Intellectual Hospitality
  Students learn best where trust, dignity, and belonging are present. I aim to create learning environments where students can take intellectual risks without fear of humiliation or dismissal.
• Formation for Judgment and Responsibility
  My guiding principle as an educator is the cultivation of judgment, attentiveness, charity, and responsible participation in public, ecclesial, and professional life.
• Cultivating Attention
  I seek to create classrooms where students learn to sustain attention, engage complexity with patience, read texts carefully, and practice the habits of thoughtful judgment.
• Embodied and Experiential Learning
  I believe education deepens when students encounter ideas through lived practices, service, pilgrimage, teaching, writing, and engagement with communities beyond the classroom.

Students & Educational Contexts
My teaching experience spans undergraduate, graduate, seminary, secondary, and literacy intervention settings. I have worked with seminarians, graduate students, gifted students, students with disabilities, and students requiring significant literacy and academic support. This range of experience has deepened my commitment to patient instruction, intellectual accessibility, and educational practices attentive to the dignity and potential of each learner.