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“The Grand Experiment:” Modeling Adult Learning With Adult-Ministry Students, Laura Simmons

Faculty Publications - Portland Seminary

Adult-learning theory challenges faculty to adapt their teaching to certain characteristics of adult learners, including self-direction: if adults direct the bulk of their lives outside of school, so should they be permitted to direct their own educational experiences. To what extent is self-directed learning an optimal, or even realistic, methodology for seminary teaching? Does it matter what subjects we are teaching? This essay details an experiment with self-directed learning in a seminary ministry class: what worked; what might be altered before experimenting again with this teaching methodology; how it challenges our view of ourselves as faculty to teach in this …