This paper explores the way students learn theology through a small qualitative research project. It is undertaken in conversation with current higher education learning theory. This learning theory suggests that it is important to discover how a student conceptualizes learning and how they perceive the teaching environment. Students interviewed increasingly spoke of the value of this academic or more cognitive side of learning as they learned "deep approaches." Important in this movement to deep, transformational learning was the presence of a relational teaching environment in which peers and teachers played a crucial role. This present study offers support to the view that the tradition of the learning community remains important for deploying deep approaches to the learning of theology in higher education. The paper argues that these relational principals of teaching and learning remain important in the face of the increased use of technology-based tools and other pedagogical challenges to theological education today.This paper explores the necessary and sufficient conditions for the learning of theology by students in higher education. It reports on the findings of a qualitative research project undertaken in late 2007 and early 2008 that asked students how they learn theology. The study was undertaken in conversation with current literature on learning theory together with other research into teaching and learning in higher education. The paper seeks to elucidate those aspects of the pedagogical process that students themselves name as important for their learning of theology and to draw some conclusions for the nature of a professional teaching environment. The measure of quality learning used in this discussion, well known in recent years, is the practice of deep approaches to learning. The implication in this paper is that the encouragement of deep approaches to learning is of critical importance for quality professional theological education within institutions of higher education: "Good teaching implies engaging students in ways that are appropriate to the deployment of deep approaches" (Ramsden 2003, 60).
ContextWritten within an Australian context, the paper draws from the insights of students within a member school of an ecumenical consortium known as the Brisbane College of Theology. The question about the teaching and learning of theology is considered a key issue in theological education at a time of pressure on institutional development and change. Theological education in Australia is offered in a competitive market as students are able to study theology in a variety of modes and locations. The advent of "e-learning" also makes it possible for theological study through higher education institutions both in Australia and overseas (Pickard 2008). The scene is more complex in the face of economic pressures at a time when fundamentalist religion and more liberal ARTICLES
This article draws on the findings of recent learning theory in adult education and describes possible ecclesial dispositions that better enable parish churches to be learning communities within the mission of God for the world. Once we understand our educational philosophy and our goals then we are better served to inform and shape the way we plan and go about the process of teaching and learning, and so develop the church’s sense of mission. The article argues that, deep approaches to learning offer a vision for ecclesial learning that will draw from the many and varied contexts where diversity is increasingly our experience. Creative but transformative learning that is ‘world involving’ precisely because it is ‘God involving’ and vice versa, can help the church mirror approaches to mission that reflect discipleship and mission in the name of the Triune God.
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