{"title":"What Factors Help Seminary Students Continue in Their Academic Programs?","authors":"Arch Chee Keen Wong","doi":"10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000028","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article uses a theological reflection model to examine a number of factors that help seminary students to continue in their academic programs. It undertakes Richard Osmer's four core tasks of practical theological interpretation to analyse the results of a qualitative case study. The case study identifies four factoring themes: connectedness between students, community within the classroom, course format and services, and interaction with teachers. The theological reflection portion explores the theological concept of community. The article concludes by using Osmer's pragmatic task to recommend ways to help students continue in their academic programs.","PeriodicalId":224329,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adult Theological Education","volume":"140 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114507514","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Learning Outcome” as a Theological Concept","authors":"C. Marsh","doi":"10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000025","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines the purpose and effectiveness of “learning outcomes” within theological education in the face of charges that they primarily serve the needs of managers and bureaucrats rather than educators. Drawing on theories about outcomes and recent evidence-based reflections on their usefulness for students, the paper argues that they are indeed pedagogically beneficial. They can be of particular use in theological education when viewed within the overall context within which such education occurs i.e. the development of the whole person. It is, however, essential that the limitations of what learning outcomes can achieve is also recognized, acknowledging that much more can, and is likely to, be learned in programmes than outcomes at session, module or course level can possibly encapsulate.","PeriodicalId":224329,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adult Theological Education","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127574302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Learning for Future Complex Tasks","authors":"Ingrid Christine Reite, Sverre Dag Mogstad","doi":"10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000026","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this article, we forefront and analyse different approaches to learning in higher theological education. In a society of increasing pluralization and democratization, the knowledge base of theology is in change. A constitutive feature of the expertise of future clergy may be simply to learn. In this article we examine the conditions for learning in the curricula of higher theological education. Learning is here not studied as an outcome of education. Here we study the conditions for learning created by how content, methods/tools and relations are combined in the curriculum. The material of this analysis is curriculum texts from the education of Protestant pastors at the MF Norwegian School of Theology (MF) and from the Protestantse Theologische Universiteit (PThU) in the Netherlands. The findings show that the two countries emphasize different learning approaches, and that the two curricula in differing degrees are oriented towards acquiring and creating new knowledge. We argue that the learning approaches in theological higher education establish quite different conditions and trajectories for how future pastors learn and handle knowledge. These learning trajectories can affect core activities of future pastors, which is to theologize.","PeriodicalId":224329,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adult Theological Education","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125497103","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What's in a Name?","authors":"Richard Rymarz","doi":"10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000024","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract One of the claims of the post secular is that there is a renewed personal interest in religion. An important manifestation of this is, amongst other things, a rise in prominence of spirituality as a descriptor of the views of many young adults. Rather than being seen as a new category, however, phenomenon like the rise of spirituality can be explained by using secularization theory. If secularization is seen as a process it anticipates that religious views and practices, broadly defined, will persist but these will lack formative and directive power. In light of this, those involved in the theological education of young adults need to be mindful that many today are vulnerable to an uncritical acceptance of dominant cultural paradigms. This occurs especially when young adults do not experience communal support.","PeriodicalId":224329,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adult Theological Education","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122884740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Formation in the Margins","authors":"Ian McIntosh","doi":"10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000027","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article argues firstly, from the context of ecumenical part-residential training, that ministerial identity is formed through attention to God's presence in the margins – those transitional places where the interrelationships between God, the Church, and the wider world are grounded. Secondly, by drawing on the work of Volf, Moltmann, McFadyen, and Ford, this formational process is characterized as one which is essentially pneumatic, pointing to the Spirit as boundary-crosser, the one who inhabits the betwixt and between as well as the tension between the now and the not yet. Thirdly, God's presence in these transitions is illustrated by viewing one great transitional event, Good Friday, through a pneumatic lens. We suggest that the formational quality which such a transition demands of ministers is resilience. The article concludes by briefly examining the potential for three other transitional events in this paschal cycle (Holy Saturday, Easter Day, and Pentecost) to demand the formational qualities of watchfulness, hospitality, and trustfulness from both ministers and from the Church.","PeriodicalId":224329,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adult Theological Education","volume":"56 Suppl 2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125712001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Towards a Practical Theology of Whole-Person Learning","authors":"Joan Whitehead","doi":"10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article explores an understanding of whole-person learning in faithbased, youth ministry training. I suggest that several challenges and cultural conditions have resulted in formational theological education becoming over-focused on academic and professional requirements, at the expense of supporting people to become integrated, self-aware, and spiritually-mature practitioners, who are able to sustain effective ministry with young people long-term. I propose that considering the ‘whole person’ in pedagogical processes provides a way of understanding and facilitating formation that will assist personal and spiritual growth as well as the development of the required theological and professional knowledge, understanding, and skills. These issues are explored through a pneumatological lens, considering the Spirit as metaphor and agent in key areas, namely formation processes, the facilitator’s role, whole person engagement, the affective domain, and mystery.","PeriodicalId":224329,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adult Theological Education","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123490002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A History of Youth Ministry Education in the USA","authors":"Mark H. Senter III","doi":"10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Youth ministry education is now well established in the USA. However, it has a long history, with Christian based work with young people emerging in the latter part of the nineteenth century. What the role of the academy is in youth ministry education is explored and some of the key themes and movements identified and discussed. The location of youth ministry education within practical theology is discussed and the conclusion offers hope for the future as the field engages with the challenges of contemporary society.","PeriodicalId":224329,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adult Theological Education","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127890502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Confirmation as Theological Education","authors":"Sarah Brush","doi":"10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/1740714114Z.00000000010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article explores a number of existing models of theological education for those being prepared to be confirmed. It compares the historic and developing picture in the UK, specifically in the Church of England, with some examples from comparative churches in continental Europe. The varying preparation methods used are described and then assessed in terms of a range of educational models including specifically adult education models. Finally the article recommends a possible new paradigm for the understanding of the theological education for confirmation preparation as part of a lifelong learning in discipleship rather than a short period of instruction.","PeriodicalId":224329,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adult Theological Education","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121224719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Welcoming Children","authors":"Rosalind Tan","doi":"10.1179/1740714114Z.0000000009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/1740714114Z.0000000009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article locates Lev Semenovich Vygotsky’s (1896–1934) sociocultural approach in the context of Luke 18.15–17 where Jesus and his disciples encountered the children and parents. The article demonstrates that Luke 18.15–17 not only captures the theological significance of Jesus’ teachings on an appropriate response to faith nurture of children as he welcomes them; but also embodies the psychological dynamics of human relationships and development proposed by Vygotsky.","PeriodicalId":224329,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adult Theological Education","volume":"103 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133526097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Solid Steps on Shifting Sand","authors":"N. Shepherd, S. Nash","doi":"10.1179/1740714114Z.0000000008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/1740714114Z.0000000008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper focuses on the rationale and pedagogical basis for theological education for professional ministry roles with children and young people. It establishes an organising framework for appreciating the complexity of this formation process – evaluating the polity, ecology, and integrity of theological education towards these particular roles. The paper proposes that these aspects of theological education offer a means for evaluating the ‘shifting sands’ that influence and inhibit this task. This analysis is used to evaluate key principles upon which this particular type of theological education was established and identify ‘solid steps’ that can help to direct its future efficacy.","PeriodicalId":224329,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adult Theological Education","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126039913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}