But Can You Teach Theology Properly On The Web?

Joan Robson, Course Coordinator, Faculty of Education, Australian Catholic University, PO Box 256, Dickson, ACT 2602. Email j.robson@signadou.acu.edu.au

Kerrie Hide, Head of School of Theology, Australian Catholic University, PO Box 256, Dickson, ACT 2602. Email k.hide@signadou.acu.edu.au

Introduction

Expressions such as, '… but you can't teach theology on-line' are often heard among educators. They imply that the teaching of theology has special attributes that cannot be accommodated unless the teaching is undertaken face-to-face, warranting the careful investigation of these attributes of theology in validating such expressions. In this particular case, the investigation is confined to theology on the assumption that the underlying ideology of teaching theology on-line applies to other disciplines such as physics and philosophy.

Terminology

Before investigation can start, the fundamental concepts of teaching, theology and on-line are delineated and expanded below.

Teaching is orchestrated by one person to enable another person to do or comprehend something, in this case, theology, (Pearsall & Trumble, 1996, 1479) with the goal of emancipation of the student (Lyotard, 1994). It involves specialised knowledge, competent teaching strategies and behaviours and appropriate professional attitudes (Barry & King, 1993, 326). Gagné (1985) sees the engineering of these external conditions by teachers as activating the internal processes needed for learning by students - it is the catalyst for learning. Habermas' (1984) universal framework for communication was seen as the vehicle for the interaction necessary to achieve this (Barnett, 1997, 27). Constructivist teaching usually searches for the current cognitive framework of the learner on which to build, and contextualising is part of that.

Theology is one of the earliest disciplines to be studied at university level. The classic definition of Anselm is the study of faith, seeking understanding by study about the mystery of God. One of many more recent definitions is that it is a system of theoretical principles arising from a rational analysis of a religious faith (Pearsall & Trumble, 1996, 1495).

On-line education uses the Web to access information and for communication between the participants - the lecturer and the students (Tiffen, 1995, 16). A unit offered on-line incorporates access to information, ways of processing information, structured and unstructured interaction between these participants, feedback and assessment tasks. The institution offering the unit has goals in offering it, and the students also have individual goals in undertaking to study in this area. Harmony between these goals and the educational environment within the on-line unit, dominates the success or otherwise of the exercise. Importantly, on-line units have the potential to liberate students from the constraints of distance, physical attendance at meetings, time constraints and give them access to expanded content resources. In this sense they are seen as a way of introducing a degree of openness into the learning (Paul, 1990, 50). The definition of openness is a matter of some dispute (Lewis, 1986; Paul, 1990; Rumble, 1989) but basically involves removal of barriers to learning such as timing, prerequisites, pace and location. It can also give students discretion in undertaking aspects of the unit, as well as taking responsibility for their own learning. But on-line learning by no means gives access to all, as new barriers to education, such as competence with technology, emerge. As well, technological developments such as synchronous communication, remove the flexibility and openness of discretionary timing. The moment that real-time interaction is introduced, this element of openness is lost.

Thus, the educational environment that the institution adopts in offering the on-line unit affects the nature and quality of the learning outcomes, for example, the match between the goals of the institution and the goals of the unit (Robson, 2000, 166) or the type of assessment and the goals. The teaching/learning paradigm of the institution supporting the unit is also critical. Furthermore, the resources provided by the institution - personnel for unit development and design, implementation, interaction, teaching, student support and the technology support are also crucial. Does the institution facilitate student-student support where desired or expand the interaction beyond the class group? Similarly, the environment is affected by the community context of the unit - factors such as fees and accreditation.

Unique aspects of theology

In considering teaching theology on-line, identifying the unique features of the discipline are identified to ensure their protection in the ensuing educational environment. This reveals that the various facets of the discipline do not uniformly lend themselves to transmission remotely. Within a face-to-face situation, aspects of theology such as the study of the Bible, ecclesiology, systematic and moral theology, spirituality and practical theology as well as faith and belief each require very different teaching strategies to develop the different professional attitudes inherent in these subdivisions. Likewise in an on-line unit, these differences must be accommodated. To this end the goals of a number of current face-to-face theology units have been identified as shown in Table 1.

These goals highlight the special understandings of the discipline that study of the unit will develop. The tasks that the students aim to undertake in order to achieve the goals, are shown in Table 2.

The teaching strategies used within these units in the face-to-face situation to enable students to undertake these tasks include exposition, delineation of a session topic, required reading, determination of a focus question, written responses by students, group discussion and practical application of theological principles to the community within a moral/theological framework. If the goals are independent of the mode of instruction, then on-line teaching must employ strategies which enable students to develop these different skills.

How do students learn?

The research literature on student learning has much to offer in applying strategies to on-line teaching which is designed to be analogous to face-to-face teaching. Foremost, is the relationship between teaching and learning. Whereas, teaching can be seen as the catalyst for learning (Barry & King, 1993, 15; Robson, 2000) it does not necessarily result in learning. Many other factors are also involved, not least of which is a teacher (Touraine, 1995, 12). Learning also comes in different forms such as cognitive, psychomotor and affective, where cognitive refers to mental processes, psychomotor to bodily movements, and affective to attitudes, morals and ethics. In the case of theology learning, cognitive and affective learning would dominate. Many educators hold that students cannot learn in this way alone, and that a teacher is a prerequisite for learning (Tiffen, 1995, 20). Others include a cohort of students as essential factors in supplying the necessary stimulus to learn (Barry & King, 1993, 569). The positive influence of these other students is supported by research into the benefits of group work in learning at all levels of education (Spady, 1970; Dillenbourg, 1999).

Related to this is the issue of student motivation. Foremost is the student's own desire to learn in the field. Without that initial motivation, all other motivational strategies are devalued. This motivation is usually in the form of deprivation or positive reinforcement (Pear, 2001, 281) such as the presence of an expert in the field of study (the teacher or lecturer). Even institutional arrangements in organising times for lectures can affect commitment to study.

As well, continued motivation to learn is nurtured by the student's perceived relevance of the unit. Therefore, the degree of individualisation within the unit to cater for the student's personal goals and needs in undertaking the study, is a factor in this. This opens up questions concerning the value of the learning resulting from generalised units for individual students, as there is ample evidence of the effects of a lack of integration in the high discontinuation rates in both face-to-face (Coaldrake & Stedman, 1998, 83) and distance education (Long, 1994).

How do students learn theology?

Tables 1 and 2 indicate how a sample of face-to-face theology units are taught at present. But what is the optimum process to result in learning? The main points raised in the literature would seem to be:

• access to content (Hodgson, 1988, 122)
• lecturer to guide (Tiffen, 1995, 20)
• immediacy of a regular face-to-face commitment (Landskroener, 2002)
• immediate feedback (Barker, et al., September 1986)
• watching an academic think in response to questions from students (Opat, 1997; Taylor, 1996, 221)
• interaction (Horton, 1994, 753)
• practical work in the field (Borich & Tombari, 1996).

Content in a face-to-face unit is usually accessed through lectures, reading bricks, text-books, journals, a list of related books, videos, other audio-visual material and URLs. Usually at least one academic in the area constructs and implements the unit - the structure facilitating any practical components. The institution schedules the contact between the academics and the students to facilitate interaction and feedback on the assumption that achieving the goals of the unit brings about learning in that area of theology. Therefore, an integral part of the unit is the assessment, whereby the extent of the student achievement of the goals is an indicator of the learning. Table 2 indicates that a student demonstrating that they can analyse, apply knowledge and skills, articulate, and so on, in theology is demonstrating learning in that area.

What motivates students to learn theology?

Motivation is a critical element in any learning. Table 1 shows that strategies such as inspiring lectures, group discussion to stimulate ideas, and theological applications relevant to students, are employed to achieve this motivation. However, within the literature (Köhler, 1993; St. Pachomius Library, 1998; Francis, et al., 1999) there is evidence that faith-based considerations, such as prayer and worship, are the catalysts for motivation to study theology. This implies that a student must initiate the process with some understanding of the area before developing it further. The communal aspects of worship are also relevant here. Francis, et al., (1999) also found that among their 304 religious studies students there was more interest in that approach than in the more wide-ranging theology style. This again highlights the individual nature of subdivisions of this and, in fact, any discipline.

Evaluation

Evaluation of current face-to-face theology units and courses has much to offer here. Both summative and normative evaluations are generally used to improve the unit during and after its implementation. Both student and staff feedback become elements of the evaluation. Questions arise as to what happens to people as a result of doing a theology unit. Do they address more theological issues, apply their deeper understanding or move into other areas? What is the current clientele? Past? Future?

What can on-line teaching provide to accommodate this?

On-line teaching often results from evaluation revealing the need to increase the flexibility of both the teaching and learning. But, investigations into teaching the representative discipline of theology on-line, reveal that generalisations about this form of teaching can be unreliable. The technologies used are rapidly reaching levels of sophistication which enable more and more things to be done remotely. As well, teaching strategies to facilitate on-line learning are evolving as more academics use this vehicle for education. Therefore, examples of recent use of strategies to support the learning and motivation in theology discussed previously, are illustrated below to show what has been done in a variety of areas and to provide direction for the future - interaction, role of teacher, practical applications, openness, context and individualisation.

Interaction

One of the simplest things that the Web has allowed educators to achieve, is access to materials (Donnan, 2000, 64) and the amount available through the Internet is expanding daily. These materials are not only in text form but multimedia. This also allows access to, and interaction with, experts (Bennington & Xu, 2000, 35) through text, email, computer-, audio-, and video-conferencing. Currently it is technically possible for a student to listen to, and watch, a lecture through video-streaming on a computer where the sight and sound are comparable to those in a large lecture theatre. Similarly Web cameras can convey images and sounds of the students to the lecturer and other students, to facilitate interaction. Co-operative group work has been demonstrated in the Monash University's virtual campus (Redman, 1996, 181) but the quality of that interaction depends on logistics such as the number of students, the form of the visual feedback of the images to the lecturer, the quality of the technology, and the expertise of the participants in utilising the equipment. Similar opportunities and restrictions exist for interaction with other students (Donnan, 2000, 67). This is seen in presenting the unit Catholic Education and Schooling (Brick, et al., 1998) where a core component involves groups of students working together electronically to write a paper which is posted on the Internet for comment from other groups. These are also set within the ideologies adopted by an institution in its support for teaching and learning, for example, acknowledging research into the value of prompt feedback (Mills, 1999, 74) and by resourcing units to enable this.

It has been shown that interaction is a key factor in motivating learning (Siaw, 2000, 98), therefore, in looking at the opportunities to motivate students to study theology, analogies can be made with the electronic pairing of students at a Japanese university and students studying Japanese at the University of Wollongong (Ramzan & Saito, 1998, 585) where by using such strategies, the relevance of the study of the language becomes immediately obvious. Similar opportunities can be devised in the study of theology (Wilson, 2000, 145).

Role of teacher

There are those who hold that the physical presence of a teacher is a necessary ingredient for certain types of learning (Tiffen, 1995, 20; Opat, 1997) because of the importance of intuition, personal interaction and the development of relationships. Such a premise denies that learning takes place in distance education where the teacher is remote from the student, and moreover denies that learning takes place when a person reads a book or watches a video remote from the author. On the other hand, Chan (2000, 48) shows that teachers can display their personalities and style even remotely to achieve that social dimension so favoured for learning. In this he sees that the autonomy-supportive teaching strategies are optimum as the students move towards becoming independent and self-directed learners through problem solving (Keppell, et al., 1998, 418; Pidgeon & Di Virgilio, 2000 87). Similarly, in adding depth to the learning, opportunities for reflection can be accommodated, for instance, in the assessment tasks (Brick, et al., 1998, 93) or in practice, such as model building (Lord, 1998, 479).

Practical applications

The prominence of practical applications of theological principles among the goals of the theology units examined, underlines that not all learning in an on-line unit needs to take place while a student is on-line. Just as students learn outside a lecture theatre, they can be given opportunities, in an off-line practical situation, to learn, apply their knowledge and skills, and to demonstrate their understandings, as well as many of the other processes used to achieve the goals of the unit (Rimmington & Connor, 1996, 189). Physicists may say that it is not possible to demonstrate the practical work but this is addressed currently with video clips and with sending laboratory boxes for experiments. Similarly, although the derivation of a formula or diagram is not so effective when shown as a fait accompli, this can be addressed again by a video streaming presentation which intersperses the derivation with comments from the lecturer, or with a shared whiteboard presentation.

Openness

A further social dimension is added when units are offered on-line. The openness that this supports initiates an opportunity for groups otherwise excluded, to study in this area. On the other hand as noted previously, where on-line video-conferencing is introduced because body language is seen as an important factor in learning, openness is diminished. These issues must be balanced in each specific situation, however, on-line teaching does go part way towards addressing some issues of equity (Lockyer, et al., 1998, 467; Wilson, 2000, 144).

Context

On-line teaching enables access to materials relevant to learning theology (Köhler, 1993), communication with experts in the field (including the lecturer) and facilitates structured and unstructured discussion with other students (Brick, et al., 1998). As argued above, it is the implementation of institutional policies that determines the nature of the ensuing educational context in which the learning of theology takes place.

Individualisation

In the same way, where a democratic ideology of education supports individualisation of a unit to cater for the needs of specific students, it is more likely to encourage them to learn. (Stark, 2000, 126; Vardanega, 2000, 131). An example of this is seen in software that is now available enabling students to construct their own understanding of the dramatic arts (Wright, et al., 1998, 673) along the lines of a constructivist framework for learning. It becomes feasible for similar software to assist students to build their understanding of aspects of theology, such as the structure of the Church or in studying the Bible. Thus, an on-line environment has the potential to extend the opportunities for teaching and learning.

Based on examples of current on-line teaching and learning discussed above, Table 3 takes the assessment tasks used in some current face-to-face units and suggests possible on-line alternatives. These alternative tasks accommodate assessing students' current level of learning in the designated area with the potential to additionally act as learning tools.

Conclusion

It has been shown that an on-line environment provides an opportunity for learning and motivating students to learn theology. Although theology has been used as representative in the case, it has been argued that this conclusion will apply to other disciplines. On-line education can cater better for some present students in a face-to-face situation, but not automatically all. It can open up opportunities to learn which are otherwise impossible for others. But again, not necessarily for all other students.
As well, currently on-line teaching is not always making the optimum use of available technologies for various reasons, even though is has been argued, that it is possible to provide the framework for an on-line theology unit that caters for the learning needs of a number of students. The goal is to identify the students for whom this form of learning is appropriate and to maximise the design and technology towards this end, thus seeking opportunities to improve the access to theology for existing students and providing for other students for whom it is currently inappropriate.

The capacity for individualisation of on-line teaching highlights the uniqueness of each learner and that on-line teaching, even though it can be individualised, is more in harmony with some learners than others. As well, on-line teaching caters better for some aspects of theology than others. Therefore, although teaching theology on-line is technically possible, and is suitable for some students, global generalisations at this stage are inappropriate, rendering comparisons between on-line and face-to-face teaching of theology unjustifiable. The same will be true for teaching other disciplines on-line. Nevertheless, there remains a need in a rapidly developing on-line environment, to seek teaching strategies which will expand on-line teaching with the ultimate goal of better supporting a bigger range of on-line learners.

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