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1. TAKING LEARNING AND TEACHING
ONLINE FOR TEE SERIOUSLY
CHALLENGES IN ONLINE TE – FROM
STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVE
Joshva Raja 2020 Stellenbosch University
- Online learning; Distance Learning; Blended learning by extension

2. PARADIGM SHIFT: FROM TEACHER
CENTERED TO LEARNERS’ CENTERED
• Asking the questions - Am I teaching or Are they Learning?
• Who are they? Do I know them? Do I need to know them? Am I journeying with them in
discovering, knowing and completing the course? Knowing learners personally is important
for tutors even if they are too many or invisible.
• Do they feel important? Are they comfortable in asking difficult questions? Are they taken
seriously by me or by the course content? Are they allowed to ask less important question?
Or do they feel free to ask idiotic questions? – taking learners seriously
• Changing the teaching style – from Dumping to empowering in learning – participating and
interacting- From uni-directional to interactive learning – user friendly too! V- from
knowledge transfer to skills to character formation
• Student based learning with immersion and blended approaches – reflexive + action based
learning

3. CREATIVE ONLINE LEARNING
• They learn in their own context and create a virtual learning community
• Preparation, Participation and Presentation – more time with content;
• Paradigm Shift in learning - Taking theological education to them – Asynchronous learning
• Pedagogical Hermeneutics using Multiple forms and technologies– audio-video-text-art–
online resources – Multitasked teacher
• Self Directed Learning (SDL)- learning by themselves – journeying and accompanying
• Peer initiated Learning (PIL)- They have control over their learning together –more
interaction
• Monitoring-quality control and reaching learning outcomes
• Formation – collaboration with local mentors– test it by themselves
• Creative tension between - knowledge transfer to skills to formation –fit for job?

4. KNOWING WHO THEY ARE
• Some are highly sophisticated – tech-wise, language and education-wise.
• Some are technophobic – fear or only book based or printed paper based learning -
reach out
• Some are techno-marginalized – accessibility to tech or availability of net or affordability
to buy -inclusive
• Some are dyslexic or slow learners or slow downloaders - age group – cultural and
contextual differences - there are more technological constraints than we can imagine.
– mutual support
• Besides tutoring, there must be mentoring and coaching and possibly group discussions
with monitoring or moderating are important – follow up with each student is very
important – Peer Assessment
• Public perception – less quality about online learning
• Initial enthusiasm and large drop outs – if consistency and follow up are not done.

5. WHAT CAN I DO TO IMPROVE
• Maintain high quality learning and input - interesting too
• Make it clear Learning outcomes – learning process- achievement set by the learner
himself or herself
• Private engagement with their personal or technological or other issues -
mentoring
• Strict in attending the sessions – no compromise and no excuses - yet recorded and
shared
• Making students to read and prepare themselves beforehand and engage them to
respond in an organized way- with a response to an article by allowing them to
summarize or critique or reflect from their context
• Supportive networks such as WhatsApp or Telegram so that they do chat or some
LMS has chat facilities including uploading videos
• Some innovative approaches such as write a song or poem or icon as response

6. PROBLEMS
• Students do not attend Zoom seminar – wake up calls and reminders – networking via
WhatsApp – Facebook network – record the teaching and interaction for students to
recollect or use another time - learning time flexible
• Technology not working – shift to another – Zoom not working shift to Google meet or to
Microsoft team – even some students would like to join via phone and let them join or
whatsapp
• Large numbers – local mentors, coaches and supporters – volunteers or semi paid to look
after small groups - regional groups
• Language – English or local languages – local support groups can be developed both those
who have completed and those who are working towards completion
• Multiple technology access – laptop to phones – visuals to audio to text – all types of access
– easily downloadable – flexibility of technology and content

7. FINDING WHAT DID THEY LEARN -
EXAMS
• Quality – have they learned and reached the level to get the degree? Online
learning should make sure that they are at par with face to face learning
• Examination – students have to study and there is no other way besides all
flexibilities and user-friendly technology
• Copying and plagiarism – leads to failure and termination of studies
• Creative tension between good knowledgeable student to good leader in the
church - achieving in exams – have they got skills? Are they knowledgeable
enough? Are they good enough characters to be leaders in the church?

8. PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES
• Banking and Dialogic (Paulo Freire)
• Crossing boundaries (Martin Buber – I thou relationship
not I-it relationship)
• Respect and critique (Role of Organic Intellectual -
Gramsci)
• Recognising and Bringing out meanings within
(Kierkegaard)
• Learning in relations (Mikail Bhaktin)

9. TEACHING
• Content - Preparation
• Communication
• Means
• Learning process 1 – Test 1 – Participation – learning outcomes
• Learning Process 2 – Test 2 – Interaction among themselves – reflection
• Effectiveness and Impact –Test 3 – Exam – Quality control
• Feedback - further improvement

10. PERCEPTION OF JOURNEY TO
THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION (TE)
• Journey to the college….
• many students were seen as empty bottles to be filled
in a theological college rather taking our prior
experience, degrees and knowledge into our TE
learning process.
• Theological education by extension has to take the
students’ context, understanding, prior learning and
faith journey seriously. Then they feel being important
in this journey
First Year
– trying
to be
faithful
Second Year
– books
overloaded
my book
shelves and
reading list
Third Year
into
writing
papers
After my TE it
was not an easy
transition into
ministry

11. WORKING OUT WHAT THEY LEARN
• Providing what is expected from learning – learning outcomes, goals, tasks, assignments,
reading resources, time frame – clearly stated in the module or course descriptions.
• Making it simple to learn without compromising the quality and enough content – not
too much nor too less
• If it is self-learning – read and pass – do it yourself first then let it be online – test with a
few before we go to all students – improve it with feedback – provide easy steps from
start to end – students should never ask “then what” or say “I am stuck”.
• If it is blended learning – make it reflective from context based – immersion based –
providing resources to read and reflect would be helpful
• After teaching students come back and ask the same question – be Patient and try to
explain – Jesus was asked the question about right and left side chairs after three years of
training