Mark's Blog

I’m taking an online course in Elearning and the Digital Culture from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.  It’s a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), and I don’t know whether it is pronounced “Moose” or “Mook” – or maybe not pronounced at all!

Over 20,000 views have been logged in the Discussion board during the first four days of the course. I know some MOOCs have 150,000 or more students enrolled, probably from every country that has internet access in the world.

The course is free!  This one is taught by four professors in Scotland, but other MOOCs are taught by professors from schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Berkeley. In other words, if you have a computer and internet access, then the best world of higher education is open to you free of charge.

At the moment, universities are not allowing students of MOOCs to earn credit toward graduation, but many of them are awarding certificates for doing the work and passing the final exam. Yes, there is real assessment!  Some of the reports I have read say that in certain industries, these certificates are opening the same kinds of doors as degrees.

Before we get to the church, think about what this means for higher education. Remember all the twittering about the morality of student debt! What if there were a free alternative?  What changes will occur in non-industrialized countries when the poorest students can access the best professors in the world?

It’s not just about access to information—because the internet eons ago (relatively) changed modern education by providing students information access without the help of professors.  Professors ceased to be the best source of information—at least of current information, so their role has become that of coach, facilitator, educated mentor, motivator, and quality assessor.

So, Church, what does this have to do with You? Well, it has to do with community, with catechesis, and with common experiences.

In my MOOC, community is created by discussion boards. We will never be in anything but the same chat room at the same time—but it doesn’t make any difference.

Our first week of instruction, so far, consists of several short indie videos to watch and discuss, two peer-reviewed articles to read and digest, and two more articles, less academic but perhaps more effective because they address broader questions with less jargon.  Participation is required and measured, but only evaluated by other students so far.

Most of our churches work on an educational model that is far removed from MOOCs. Think about it:  We leave our homes and go somewhere to sit in pews or some chair and have intermittently successful community experiences. We have very predictable ritualistic acts whose familiarity bring us comfort, but which are a mystery to the uninitiated.  The heart of our most valuable time together is spent listening to the church’s best teacher lecture for 30-40 minutes, during which we expect him not only to instruct, but to inspire, motivate, admonish, and/or convict somebody.

Amazingly, this model continues to work well for some but that number appears to be shrinking. What I am asking is this:  how much longer will it work for anyone??

I just left my first-grade grandson at home, doing his homework on the computer. He had headphones on, listening to the audio information while watching professionally produced instructive video—which certainly did not last longer than 5 minutes!  His teachers don’t lecture. Our third and fourth grade granddaughters both received iTouches from their elementary school with which they communicate with classmates and their teacher 24/7.

My grandkids and your children, including your current teenagers, don’t learn anything the same way we did!  What makes us think that they will learn to love God and love His Church and Love His Word and Love their Neighbor from teaching models that they only experience in church for a couple of hours a week at best.  What are we thinking??

Here are some of the challenges:

• Will churches be able to distinguish between divinely inspired and familiarly required?
• Will the first who seek to change be burned at the stake?
• How much critical mass will be lost before churches are forced to consider other models?
• Who will have both the courage and the wisdom (not just knowledge) to even know how to restructure the church’s model of instruction?
• Will the church finally begin to find a working model, only to realize that learning styles have continued to evolve and have moved on down the road?

Churches have managed to survive with this model through Generation X, but we are struggling to retain Gen Y or Millennials.  We don’t even know what the game is yet for the Gen Zers (born after 2000) because they are still too young.

I know they will tell us—but will we understand what they are saying?  And will we listen?