Resisting Disembodiment – Distributed Learning is Not Distance Education

When I first started working in online seminary education, generic my boss explained to me, remedy ‘We don’t do distance education, thumb we do distributed learning.’ Working with her and many other wise leaders, I came to understand what they meant. Distance education implies a learned center from which education radiates out. Online learning technologies allow education to be delivered to people who are distant from that center, but they are distant nonetheless.

Distributed learning is something different. In a distributed learning program, students are doing embodied learning in their local town, city, congregation, or ministry site. Distributed learning programs use online learning tools to connect students in a community of learning, drawing on the wisdom of experts, their instructors, and one another, while remaining in their own communities.

Not Disembodied

As I have spoken with students, seminary faculty members, and ministry leaders, I have heard a number of people express concerns about the appropriateness of disembodied online courses for theological and ministerial learning. Indeed, if our imagination of the capabilities of web based learning tools is limited to people getting a degree in their bathrobes and bunny slippers while not interacting with teachers, fellow students, or people in their contexts, I’m not interested either.

However, distributed learning need not be a disembodied experience. In traditional on-campus learning models, faculty and students are face-to-face with one another, and use a variety of communication technologies to interact with people in students’ communities of origin and the communities students might serve after graduation. In distributed learning, this model is reversed; students live and learn face-to-face in their communities and interact with their seminary learning community using a variety communication tools.

Community of Learning

In distributed learning courses and curricula, students are asked to meet people in their communities, engage with local ministry contexts, and learn from local ministry leaders. Students gather in online courses where they encounter the wisdom of current and ancient church mothers and fathers through assigned readings and a variety of resources.

Students learn from and interact with their instructors through web based video presentations, conference calls, video conferences, or written communication. They connect with their fellow students through online discussion forums, video conferencing, telephone, or email, sharing how the uniqueness of their own context shapes, informs, and challenges the learning in the course. In distributed learning, the learning in the course shapes and is shaped by student engagement with people in their local communities and the people in the community of learning of their course.

Live into the Imagination

At one level the distinction of distance education and distributed learning is semantic word play with the intent of expanding imagination. However, if we are going to live into that imagination, it will require intentionality in how we design our courses and curricula. In our course designs, how might we create opportunities for students to connect the learning of the course to their lived contexts? How might we write discussion prompts that invite students to compare how their contexts are similar and different and to ask what difference those similarities or differences might make? How might the structure of the coursework support, sustain, and encourage students in the ministry leadership they do now as well as the leadership work they will do after they complete their degrees?

New Technologies

In addition, how can we take advantage of new mobile technologies that provide incredible learning opportunities? With a modern smart phone, students can create video, record audio, take and share photographs, update a web document, write email, post in their discussion forums, or do a host of other creative activities—all with a device that fits in a pocket.

How might we take advantage of the creative power of these devices for distributed learning? Could students use their smart phones to create video interviews with congregational elders, use their cameras for photo-ethnography projects to better understand the needs of the community, or use the audio recording to record, share, and get feedback on their own preaching and speaking? There are many ways we might invite students to engage their contexts or to use mobile technologies for learning. To do so, it will require intentionality on our part as educators to design our courses, curricula, and technical infrastructures in ways that support contextual learning.

Engaging Contexts

Face-to-face learning on a seminary campus is still be a powerful and compelling way to learn and will be a great fit for some students. With online learning technologies, students can also engage in face-to-face learning in local contexts while being a part of a distributed learning program with a seminary. For those students who want or need to remain in their contexts, how will we as educators create distributed learning programs that create a rich community of learning that engages local contexts?

 

Add to favorites