(Trans)formation: The critical difference

I have just emailed a draft of "Spiritual formation in distance education" to supervisors, outlining where my reading on the subject has taken me thus far. Here's the conclusion of the draft:

Spiritual formation is seen as a valid objective in all forms of adult education, however it is considered a necessary element of theological education. The apparent inability of distance education to provide a formative experience is one of the major objections to its use in theological education. However, recent theorists have been challenging the extent to which theological education in any context enhances formation. Further, the association of formation with the affective domain in theological education literature reveals a dualism out of step with the more holistic adult learning theory of transformation.

It is proposed in this study that distance education is capable of providing a transformative learning experience for students of theological education, and that this transformation subsumes the traditional understanding of formation. This shifts the debate of what it means to be formed through theological education, making this study very timely and ensuring that it will make a unique and valuable contribution to scholarship.

It has been an interesting draft to prepare, primarily because of the need to wrestle with the terminological differences between spiritual formation as a secular objective and Christian education as a theological objective. Also interesting has been the dualism of cognitive and affective outcomes apparent in much theological education literature, a dualism that seems untenable in light of adult transformation theory. This dualism, I am proposing, denies distacne educaiton a fair hearing when it comes to transofrmation of students.

So, the way ahead is clear. The road is well sign-posted. Problem is, I am taking a detour for a while... for the next six months my research will not be directly associated with my PhD. Instead, I am authoring the final two E-Primers in the series soon to be made available through Ako Aotearoa (see e-ako.blogspot.com).

So, signing off for a while...!

Boiling it down

I'm back into the PhD, after a relaxing holiday and a focus on preparing a PG presentation. As I prepare a full draft on the subject of formation (one of my three main focuses) I am struck by the fact that I know more about the subject than I can adequately write about, and that I have at my disposal far more quotations and perspectives at my disposal than I can possibly hope to include.

I've decided that this is a good thing.

When I lectured in business communications, I became acutely aware that a student's writing typically betrays the worth of their storehouse. In other words, students with far more to draw on than what they were able to include inevitably had a depth and richness to their writing that their lesser-informed peers did not. In other words, it's better to boil something down to concentrate than it is to water it down to provide volume.

So, at the moment I'm not merely writing, I'm boiling, bubbling over, surrounded by the cloudy fragrance of formational thought, mentally savouring the concentrated flavours that subtly blend into a mouth-watering read...

At least, I hope so!

Great reading from Bates (2005) on definitions, and Anderson (2007, in Theological Education) on the InMinistry programme and associated distance education-style technique... plenty to, err, chew on and throw into the mix of authors already cited!

A presentation - where I'm at for now

I presented this (AVI, 10MB) at last Friday's PG symposium held at Carey College, uploaded in AVI format in my ePortfolio. The session went very well and gave rise to some excellent questions, many of which are already addressed well enough in the literature I've read but not included directly in the presentation. I'm happy to respond to comments to this post and welcome further dialogue on thinking so far!