Educational Technology and Distance Education: Issues and Implications for Theological Education

Theological Education Educational Technology and Distance Education: Issues and Implications for Theological Education Volume 36 Number 1 Autumn 1999 ISSN 0040-5620i ii Theological Education Educational Technology and Distance Education: Issues and Implications for Theological Education Volume 36 Number 1 Autumn 1999 i ISSN 0040-5620 THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION Volume 36, Number 1 Autumn 1999 DANIEL O. ALESHIRE Executive Editor KATHERINE E. AMOS Issue Editor NANCY MERRILL Managing Editor MARY McMILLAN Production Assistant Theological Education is published semiannually by The Association of Theological Schools IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 10 Summit Park Drive Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15275-1103. For subscription information or to order additional copies or selected back issues, please contact the Association. phone: 412-788-6505 fax: 412-788-6510 e-mail: [email protected] website: http://www.ats.edu © 1999 The Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by means of any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act, or in writing from the publisher. Permission is hereby granted without charge for the reproduction and distribution of this work, or any of its parts, for educational purposes by the faculty or administration of member institutions of The Association of Theological Schools, provided that no fee or compensation is charged for copies, use of, or access to such information beyond the actual cost of reproduction or access, and that the copyright notice is included intact. Requests for permission for all other uses of any part of this work should be addressed in writing to the Managing Editor, The Association of Theological Schools, 10 Summit Park Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15275-1103. This periodical is indexed in Religion Index One: Periodicals, Religion Indexes: RIO/RIT/IBRR 1975- on CD-ROM and ATLA Religion Database on CD-ROM, published by American Theological Library Association, 820 Church Street, Evanston IL 60201-5613; E-mail: [email protected]; WWW:http:// atla.library.vanderbilt.edu/atla/home.html. ii Contents Introduction v Daniel O. Aleshire ISSUE FOCUS Theme Introduction vii The Editors A Review of Literature on Distance Education 1 Linda Cannell A Survey of Accrediting Agency Standards 73 and Guidelines for Distance Education Samuel K. Roberts An Examination of Formational and Transformational 87 Issues in Conducting Distance Learning Anne Reissner Using Computers in Theological Education: Rules of Thumb 101 Scott Cormode Summaries of Two Experimental 117 Distance Education Programs Jimmy Dukes and Gregory W. Bourgond Report of the Survey of ATS Schools on Educational 125 Technology and Distance Education Katherine E. Amos OPEN FORUM An Integrated Approach to Theological Education 141 Patricia A. Lamoureux Pedagogy of the Repressed: 157 What Keeps Seminarians from Transformational Learning? F. LeRon Shults Writing Practical Christian Wisdom: 171 Genre and the Doctor of Ministry Dissertation Timothy D. Lincoln iii ATS Communications Advisory Committee Elizabeth C. Nordbeck, Chair Michael A. Fahey Alan Hayes Paul R. House Roy Larson Rex D. Matthews Robert J. Wister Theological Education, the journal of The Association of Theo- logical Schools, is devoted solely to issues and ideas in graduate theological education in North America. The journal sup- ports the mission of the Association by: (1) providing a forum for scholarly discourse on current issues and trends in graduate theological education in the United States and Canada; (2) addressing the contemporary issues facing the community of theological schools; (3) sharing models of critical analysis and effective practice in theological education; and (4) recording the changes and advances in theological education. iv Introduction Daniel O. Aleshire The Association of Theological Schools This issue of Theological Education experiments with a modified format of the journal by presenting a series of six articles on a central theme—the “issue focus”—and three articles that constitute an “open forum” for exploring particular topics in theological education that are unrelated to the theme. The open forum articles were juried by members of the ATS Communica- tions Advisory Committee, which serves as the advisory editorial board for Theological Education. This bifold structure of the journal, suggested by the Communications Advisory Committee, may be continued in subsequent issues to provide a cluster of articles around an identified theme as well as juried articles by the committee on a variety of other subjects in theological education. The six articles related to the theme of this issue—Educational Technology and Distance Education: Issues and Implications for Theological Education— are described in the theme introduction that follows. In addition, the editors provide a historical background of extension education in the ATS standards and some current definitions of distance education from several sources. The Association is grateful to the Commission on Accrediting’s Task Force on Educational Technology and Distance Education, the members of the ATS Educational Technology Advisory Committee, and to Katherine Amos, ATS Director of Accreditation and Extension Education, for their thoughtful and thorough work that has brought the resources, gathered in this issue of Theological Education, to bear on the current discussions of distance education in graduate, professional theological education. The three “open forum” articles in this issue explore: (1) a general methodology for teaching and learning in theological schools, (2) the roles of fear in theological education, and (3) the genre of the Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) dissertation. Patricia Lamoureux of St. Mary’s Seminary and University reports on a work in progress in her article “An Integrated Approach to Theological Education,” in which she proposes a methodology for teaching and learning that integrates emotion, intellect, theology, and experience. Her integrative model draws on drama, film, and literature to facilitate theological reflection and provide what she describes as “a more wholistic educational experience.” Her methodology is grounded in theological education as spiritual journey in which the spiritual disciplines of study of sacred texts, prayer and contempla- tion, and the gathered life of the community play a central and formative role. F. LeRon Shults of Bethel Theological Seminary explores theological and psychological understandings of fear in relation to theological education in his v article “Pedagogy of the Repressed: What Keeps Seminarians from Transfor- mational Learning?” He begins by considering the problem of fear from a psychological perspective, and then moves to examining a theological under- standing of fear as it relates to seminary education. He suggests that too much fear, understood psychologically, inhibits transformational learning in theological education, while not enough fear, understood theologically, also inhibits learning. Timothy Lincoln of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary sketches the characteristic features of the Doctor of Ministry project as a practical document in “Writing Practical Christian Wisdom: Genre and the Doctor of Ministry Dissertation.” To further clarify the genre, he contrasts the D.Min. dissertation with certain expectations for a Ph.D. dissertation and then proposes a “tentative description” of the D.Min. project to invite future research and attention that might contribute to better supervision of students as they write their final D.Min. project documents. vi Theme Introduction: Distance Education and The Association of Theological Schools The central theme of this issue of Theological Education is educational technology and distance education, and their implications for graduate, professional theological education in North America. The last issue of Theological Education devoted primarily to articles about extension education was twenty-five years ago in the summer of 1974. That issue examined theological education by extension as it was developing outside of Europe and North America, and pointed to possible uses by ATS schools in North America. For the most part, theological education by extension was understood by those authors as an educational practice in use in less developed countries. Some authors in the 1974 Theological Education, like Ted Ward and C. Peter Wagner, advocated for its adoption in North America for a variety of reasons. Collin Williams, responding as immediate past chair of the ATS Commission on Educational Strategy and Planning, was more cautious about the implications of the “deschooling” tendencies of theological education by extension. The ATS discussion about extension education continued through the 1970s, and at the ATS Biennial Meeting in 1980, the Association adopted its first formal standard on extension education, including “Criteria for Extension/ Satellite Credit Offerings and Degree Programs” (ATS Bulletin 34, 1980, Part 6, Biennial Meeting, 78-82). By 1980, extension education had ceased to be a speculative discussion among ATS schools and become an educational practice for many. Extension education, at this time, was understood exclusively in terms of off-campus courses or degree programs in which professors and students worked together in classroom

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