01.01.2025 / Volker Glissmann
In last month’s blog (“Theological Education – Why many are Not Completely Satisfied“), we looked at why many theological educators try to improve theological education by overcoming curriculum fragmentation. This post is a continuation where we would like to highlight practical ways theological educators can overcome curriculum fragmentation. We continue looking at ministerial theological education that trains individuals for a pastoral or full-time ministry in a church, as it received the most scrutiny.
Any curriculum revision requires input from all the stakeholders, as they will be best placed to assess, critique and shape the revision. The stakeholders are laity/grassroots church, current and former students, church leadership and the faculty of a theological institution. It is essential to listen to those who will employ graduates as they are best placed to evaluate if the qualities of graduates match their employment needs.
Imagination/Thinking outside the box
The natural assumption of any graduate of any educational programme is that how one has learned a subject is how the subject ideally should be taught. This includes the whole curriculum and everything that contributed to it, including individual courses, curriculum structure, delivery methods, duration, assessments, and extra-curricular activities. The assumption is based on the idea that their teachers/institutions of learning follow the best practice of teaching the subject. Learners subconsciously pick up this assumption as it is not articulated (this is called the hidden curriculum).
The general rule of thumb is that all forms of education are continuously undergoing revision to improve the delivery and contextual relevance. All curricula are contextual (even the “standard/traditional Schleiermachian” curriculum is a contextual response to the needs of its time). What might have worked 100 years, 50 years, or even 10 years ago might not be the right response to today’s training needs.
Today’s contextual training’ needs determine the shape of the programme! The tendency is too often to follow the inherited/traditional curriculum and make minor adjustments at the edges. What is needed is some thinking outside of the box to imagine how a differently shaped curriculum could fulfil the actual training needs. It is further advised to consult experts in theological curriculum design to guide the process.
Backward design
A common approach to curriculum design is not to ask which topics need to be covered but instead focus on the outcome or the end result and then design the programme intentionally backward from the programme’s goal. This is called “backward design.” A highly recommendable book that uses backward design for theology curriculum design is Perry Shaw’s Transforming Theological Education. (Disclaimer: I studied under Perry Shaw and then took over teaching a course he designed on backward curriculum design).
Stock taking: What are the purposes of the curriculum? What is our Graduate Profile?
The first question is, what are the expressed and implied purposes of the curriculum? In other words, who do you want to train? What purposes are they trained for? The purpose (or the outcome) will determine the content (topics and courses), methods and the pedagogical tools used to achieve the objective.
A good way to think about the purpose is to list all the competencies a graduate should have and produce a detailed theological graduate profile. The graduate profile contains descriptions of (theological) core knowledge (academic formation), ministry skills (ministerial formation), interpersonal skills and spirituality (character and spiritual formation). The graduate profile establishes the competencies that graduates will have developed due to the curriculum. The graduate profile will balance academic, vocational/ministerial, and interpersonal skills and spirituality.
Right tools: Is the curriculum effectively developing the described graduates?
The second question is whether the current curriculum consistently and effectively develops graduates according to the graduate profile. This is also known as fitness of purpose and fitness for purpose of the curriculum. This investigates whether or not the curriculum delivers the claimed outcome (graduate profile). The related question is, does the curriculum effectively deliver the outcome? A simple way to find out is to interview several graduates of your program after a few years. Ask them, “What areas of our program prepared you well and what areas do we need to improve?” This simple question will greatly help you to improve your program. Additionally, the impact of the hidden curriculum on the actual learning outcomes needs to be investigated.
Central to the question is whether the curriculum successfully balances the different requirements of the graduate profile, especially considering the potential employability of the graduate. For example, the graduate profile might say graduates have good Bible knowledge, but the curriculum might only contain introductory/survey courses on the Old and New Testaments. The graduate profile might state that graduates can teach and preach, yet preaching is only a one-semester course. The graduate profile might claim it prepares for the pastoral ministry, yet all the courses are academic-focussed. The critical question is, is the curriculum effectively developing the competencies defined in the graduate profile? If not, the curriculum must be adjusted to deliver the desired outcome.
Centre of the curriculum: Integrating the fragmented
The fragmentation of the curriculum results from opposing demands on the curriculum (academic vs vocational skills). As well as the challenge to condense 2000 years of theological reflection, practice, experience, publishing and learning into three (impossibly) short years of study. Every curriculum design chooses what to include and exclude as well as the depth in which ideas/topics are covered. A common problem in modern theological curriculum design is that institutions fragment content but leave it to the graduates to miraculously integrate it upon graduation into life and ministry without telling or teaching them how to integrate. Integration needs to be part of the actual curriculum and its courses.
Integration is supported by a) a narrative centre of the curriculum, b) narrative and methodological consistency, and c) course outcomes supporting Christian best practice.
- A curriculum narrative framework is a pedagogical tool that provides structure, integration, and focus for each course and how they contribute to the grand narrative of a purposeful education. The Christian story is a key available narrative framework for that purpose.
- Integration is about bringing together what belongs together in Christian practice; for example, Christian practice is based on the whole council of the Scripture (which emphasises the continuation of themes throughout the entire Scripture and downplaying the academic specialisation into Old or New Testament studies or the theologies of Paul and Peter), Christian practice also requires consistency in the application of methods across the whole curriculum, for example, if exegesis/hermeneutics is only used for academic discussions and does not inform the chapel service then learners not surprisingly discard its value for life and ministry.
- Best practice in any organisational setting is vital for effective employability and success. Curriculum design tends to investigate topics exclusively through an academic lens. Practical essential vocational skills must be reintegrated and not treated as an academic topic, such as conflict resolution. Graduates should be able to navigate the practical process of conflict resolution and not just be proficient in writing an essay about it.