Online community - necessary for spiritual formation?

[Mark Nichols]

Hi everyone,

My last attempt to initiate discussion failed miserably ;o) but I
think this question might generate some sharing. I'm just reading
Maddix & Estep's (2010) Spiritual formation in online higher education
communities: Nurturing spirituality in Christian higher education
online degree programmes" (CEJ 3, 7(2), pp.423-434). I am a little
uncomfortable with the apparent need to defend online discourse as an
essential aspect of spiritual formation in distance courses.

So, quick poll. Do you think social presence through online community
in distance theological education is:

A) A MUST-HAVE for spiritual formation,
B) A NICE TO HAVE contributor to spiritual formation, or
C) An UNECESSARY requirement for spiritual formation?

I suspect few of you would want to be confined into categories so
naturally further perspectives are welcome! My own take is C/B...

Mark.

[Rosemary]

I tried emailing from my email address but it doesn't seem to have
made an appearance here. Sorry, if you get it twice because I've
missed something!

Hi there,

I'm slow to respond but have a lot on and my brain is full to bursting
with topics other than this one...

I'm with Mark. C and B.
I want to say that it's all in the design - also you can never
guarantee anything and social presence really won't do anything for
some students, just be a bind. On the design angle I've been part of
designing a course in spiritual formation itself that was emphasising
personal journey so did not have much online interaction at all
(minimum really) but majored on good video material from the subject
matter expert seeking to emulate something of a sense of speaking with
a spiritual director and required frequent journals frequently
commented on so another layer of spiritual direction happened with the
tutor. That seemed to be plenty of social presence for most people.

I have also personally completed a spiritual formation course which
was done entirely without any online social presence at all - all in a
book format - and I certainly was taken on a meaningful journey. The
design of that course was, however, noticeably superior to another
book-based one I did that just left me frustrated and gritting my
teeth to finish.

I realise the above examples are topics of spiritual formation so it
would be sad if spiritual formation wasn't happening in them. They
just happened to be the best examples to share. I'm convinced it can,
and is, true of other courses. Then again, you can design as best you
can but you can never guarantee that what you do will work for
everyone. That's the risk and the reality in any educational
endeavour.

Conclusion? Claims that you must have online social presence for
spiritual formation to be happening are, I think, someone trying to
convince you to buy their argument.

Rosemary

[John Robertson]

Hi Mark (& everyone else),

I appreciate i've not introduced myself properly yet and will try to do so in the future (in short i work in educational technology but have studied a little of the history of theological education and have an interest in how the two might relate).

I've not read the article (yet anyway :) ) so would want to think a bit more of the specific but I think i'm probably a B. 

I do though find myself unavoidably asking the a prior question in response: 

 Do you think social presence through community in theological education is:

A) A MUST-HAVE for spiritual formation,
B) A NICE TO HAVE contributor to spiritual formation, or
C) An UNECESSARY requirement for spiritual formation?

My answer of B would hold here as well (plenty of spiritual formation goes on in courses without any explicit social interaction). 

I'm not suggesting that online interaction and face to face interaction are the same (in terms of communication they both have different affordances and advantages and on a basic level there's something embodied and tangible about spiritual formation that could perhaps be more easily missed, forgotten, or avoided in the context of online interaction) but I think there's a wider conversation about the relation of courses, community, and spiritual formation online or offline. I'd say that spiritual formation courses should always have a social/ interactive dimension though how that is mediated will vary (a book with reflective questions in better than a book; some form of communal reflection on the questions is probably better still). If such a course is about delivering content rather than stimulating reflection it's 'just' history/ theology. 

At the risk of stirring a little  - I'd also make the point that promoting student interaction and communal discussion around course content in online courses is also good pedagogy (though i may have missed something here as I don't think you'd be arguing against that - time to track down the article :) )

anyway, glad to be here,

John

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[Mark Nichols]

Hello John,

Thanks for your post, and I look forward to your intro. I fully agree
with your comment regarding good pedagogy! However I am wary of
pressing online 'community' too far in terms of what it is really
capable of. My study in this area is making me increasingly aware that
'real' community (that is, actual church community for distance
students) is what makes the difference, and that anything online is,
at best, supplementary.

My defensiveness is mostly to do with the fact that very few articles
actually identify the value of church community in the context of
distance theological education formation. Local church community is
frequently mentioned as a benefit to distance education, but it is
never identified as an ideal bed for formation alongside theological
reflection and academic learning. Sadly (at least to me), it seems as
though distance theological educators are trying desperately to
legitimise online discourse and 'online community' as providing the
best response to critics of distance theological education,
particularly those who insist that formation through theological
education cannot take place outside of the classroom.

So, I'm not AGAINST social presence for formational purposes, just
convinced that not having it is not necessarily a bad thing. At least
we agree that A is not the best response ;o)

Cheers,

Mark.

> On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 8:03 AM, Mark Nichols <nicht...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
>
> > My last attempt to initiate discussion failed miserably ;o) but I
> > think this question might generate some sharing. I'm just reading
> > Maddix & Estep's (2010) Spiritual formation in online higher education
> > communities: Nurturing spirituality in Christian higher education
> > online degree programmes" (CEJ 3, 7(2), pp.423-434). I am a little
> > uncomfortable with the apparent need to defend online discourse as an
> > essential aspect of spiritual formation in distance courses.
>
> > So, quick poll. Do you think social presence through online community
> > in distance theological education is:
>
> > A) A MUST-HAVE for spiritual formation,
> > B) A NICE TO HAVE contributor to spiritual formation, or
> > C) An UNECESSARY requirement for spiritual formation?
>
> > I suspect few of you would want to be confined into categories so
> > naturally further perspectives are welcome! My own take is C/B...
>
> > Mark.
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "CHRistian Education (Distance) In Tertiary Settings - CHREDITS" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to chre...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

> > chredits+u...@googlegroups.com<chredits%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> > .

[Diane Hockridge]

Hello all,

Thanks for the opportunity to contribute to this discussion.

I suspect that there are a variety of working definitions of the key terms here, that we all carry around in our heads, and implement in our teaching and learning.  Terms like "social presence", "spiritual formation", "community", and even "distance" or "online" learning are understood and used in a variety of ways depending on our context.

At the risk of distracting us into "definition land", I do wonder what each of means when we refer to "social presence"? 

 

Here's a basic definition from Palloff & Pratt (2007): social presence is "the ability to portray oneself as a "real" person in the online environment" (p.4). Why do we need to portray ourselves as "real" people? So we can interact and relate to each other in a meaningful way. 

 

Do we need interaction for spiritual formation? Rosemary pointed out that some aspects of spiritual formation need little interaction with others.  However, John suggests that spiritual formation courses should always have a social/interactive dimension. It seems to me, (and I must say that I have little direct teaching experience), that spiritual formation involves both an individual and corporate element.  The Maddix & Estep article (which I have just had a quick look at) backs this up - they actually identify 3 domains for spiritual formation- inward, outward and corporate.(p.432)

 

So, if there is a corporate element, a need to interact with others for at least some of what we call "spiritual formation", the question is how do we do the corporate/interactive stuff with our students who are studying by distance?  This seems to be the point at which people head off in different directions.  Some say you just can't successfully do interaction and community online, others say you can.  I think Mark is saying that the ideal way to encourage corporate interaction for spiritual formation for distance students is via their actual local church communities.

 

I wonder whether we might end up setting up an unnecessary distinction here? I would hope we could take an approach that fosters spiritual formation in a variety of contexts through a variety of approaches, without needing to set "online community" against some other form of community.  In the example that Maddix and Estep put forward, they suggest that one of the benefits of online education is that it contextualises ministry.  They give the example of a preaching class - an online student gets to preach in their ministry context, rather than the somewhat static/fabricated environment of a classroom.  (Mark, in this sense Maddix and Estep are making a similar point to you I think?).  It is interesting to me that Maddix and Estep describe their spiritual formation program as "fully online", yet the program includes regular meetings with a spiritual director/mentor.  Another interesting element of the program they describe is the use of an ongoing "cohort" or learning community of the same students throughout the program, in which a sense of community can develop and which supports the students as they progress through the program.  I think this sounds like a good approach to spiritual formation.

 

I think that online interaction can be valuable both in learning and spiritual formation, as can face-face interaction and involvement in local ministry contexts.  This probably sounds a bit like fence-sitting, but I like a both/and approach, rather than an either/or approach. 

 

So my answer to Mark’s original question? Social presence through community in theological education is ONE CONTRIBUTOR to spiritual formation.

 

 

 

Diane Hockridge
Distance Education Officer

Sydney College of Divinity

email: dia...@scd.edu.au

 

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[Diane Hockridge]

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