Submitted to WORD & WORLD for the "Face to Face" section. Fall 1998

By Richard Nysse

Sin, death and the devil will not be banished by the introduction of computers in the process of education. The eschaton did not arrive with the World Wide Web.

With that said, I’m finished making concessions to naysayers. Web-based technology has already facilitated fundamental change; this is not a fad and the change is not simply a marginal enhancement or a costly diversion.

My own evidence is at this point largely anecdotal, based on several offerings of a course on the Pentateuch for students both resident on Luther Seminary's campus and scattered from Florida to Washington and points in-between (Colorado, Montana and Utah to name several). The quality of the engagement with the biblical text and the depth of discussion between students matched anything I have witnessed as a teacher in face-to-face, classroom settings. I have already had my failures as a teacher in the environment made possible by web-based technology. I have much more to learn, but this much is clear: Computer mediated learning is far more than a concession to students who have difficulty moving to a seminary campus for theological education. In fact, to be fair to the students involved, I must state that their work has been the best that I have seen in twenty years of teaching.

To what do I attribute the improvement? Surely, not the technology by itself. Rather, the technology allows the practice of teaching to catch up with the rhetoric we have long used to describe effective learning. For example, we have talked for a long time about active learning rather than the passive reception of information and thus we have often patched an "application" assignment at the end of a term filled with the ingestion of data. We know deep down that this does not constitute an adequate engagement for shaping public ministry. We have hoped students catch the appropriate learning from us by watching us model theological, pastoral reflection, but we remain uncertain about how deep into the ranks of students our enthusiastic modeling spreads. We have laughed when teachers jokingly said that students are not learning if teachers are not speaking, but we keep on speaking, perhaps because it is logistically the easiest style of teaching to stage. Too often the practice of us so-called "content experts" assumes that the only way content is learned is by our "delivering" it and students "receiving" it, despite our rhetoric to the contrary.

We don't wish to conduct ourselves in this manner; not all of us do all of the time. And, technology does not automatically alter such teaching practice. In fact, there is a strong temptation to perpetuate these practices with the aid of multimedia technology. We can add technological whistles and bells to our jokes, wit and personalities as we "deliver" our lectures, hoping to increase attention and motivation among listening students. PowerPoint presentations look much slicker than flipping transparencies on an overhead projector. But adding glitz does not fundamentally alter education.

However, new technologies, especially web-based technology, can implement the style of education that we have long said we wanted. For example, the logistical problems inherent in collaboration and discussion outside the confines of the classroom can be readily overcome. The computer does not produce the collaboration; rather the computer can mediate the communication exchanges that are required for collaboration and discussion to occur. There is no need for students to gather in one place to collaborate. Chat rooms overcome the geographical problem. But that is a marginal improvement, for the temporal problem remains (and fast typists have a huge advantage).

In an asynchronous electronic forum, students can write for and respond to each other without physically passing papers back and forth. Writing to and for peers regularly raises the quality of what is produced (composition teachers have told us this for a long time). Writing papers for professors is often little more than jumping through a hoop because the audience, i.e., the professor, is an artificial audience. Writing to peers who will be colleagues in ministry is not nearly so artificial and it develops a collaborative, collegial practice that is sorely needed in the contemporary church. The teacher can observe the communications between students and can provide private comment via e-mail. The teacher encourages and guides learning more than "delivers" information. In addition, such comment is not seen or heard by the entire discussion group and thus, when it has to be disapproving in character, it does not have the same potential to embarrass the student in front of peers.

There are many additional educational advantages. For one, more reticent students have equal access. Students are able to complete their thoughts without interruption. Faculty are not able to "censor" the discussion with their body language or with their laughter or the lack thereof. Students cannot vie for faculty approval, shaping their comments to receive -- in front of their peers -- a "that’s interesting" faculty response versus "well, perhaps." Students who, for whatever reason, are having difficulty performing competently cannot hide in an electronic forum and consequently faculty assistance can be given before a crisis point is reached.

Two closing comments: Learning how to use web-based technologies effectively in constructing learning environments is not a simple matter. It requires a team approach, for more competencies are required than any one teacher can acquire. Teachers cannot depend on their "expert" grasp of content and their personal enthusiasm to be sufficient to create an effective learning experience for students. Teaching theologians will need to develop collaborative relationships, not only with other theologians, but also with instructional designers and technicians – and they will have to be recognized as colleagues in the educational enterprise, not simply as support staff. This will produce an enormous cultural change – one that many observers say will come whether or not faculty like it.

Finally, the most common objection I hear from non-users is that it is will destroy the "personal" dimension of education. I hope those comments don’t mean the loss of the teacher’s personality, for the "personal" is the point at which faculty exert the most subtle and at the same time most forceful pressure on students to conform to the teacher’s tastes or opinions. Computer mediated communication can effectively ameliorate this pressure. And yet, the "personal" is not lost; it is shifted from the teacher to the students. The online discussions that I have observed have produced more intense sharing around the discussion of biblical texts by more students than any face-to-face class I have been a part of. Students can be counted on to produce far more than privatistic or bull-session comments when the discussion is not an add-on to a course that at its core is constituted by the "delivery" of information from a teacher. Engaged students are intensely personal.