Spectrum

This is a VERY rough draft of some ideas I’ve been tossing around for a while, a spectrum, or perhaps a continuum is a better word, of where seminaries are in teaching and learning, and where we ought to be going as change continues around us. The original idea grew out of a table that Robert Barr and John Taggert published in a book entitled Learning from CHANGE: Landmarks in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (p. 198-199).

Their table compared two educational paradigms. What I’m doing here is somewhat different from that, but it does build on their earlier work. In the tables below, wherever you see “BT” that is a direct quotation from their table, anything else is my own contribution. If you’re someone who would like to help contribute to this process, please email me (mhess at luthersem dot edu) and I’ll give you the password.

The tables move from left to right, with the left end of the table being institutions still firmly rooted in pre-modern, or in some cases, modern, contexts, while those more to the right are embedded in postmodernity. I actually think it might be more accurate to see them in a three-dimensional sphere, where the left end bends back around to touch the right on a sphere, but at the moment I’m working in only two dimensions as I try to get the content chunks right.

On this main page I’ve listed the seven arenas I’m currently charting, but I’m sure there are better ways to divide them up, which is one reason I’d like feedback. Click on a category to go to that table.

Vocation of Institution

Learning theory

Teaching/learning structures

Culture of institution

Productivity and funding issues

Contextual issues (including digital tech and media)

Nature of roles

Last updated 5 July 2007