sustain:if:able kiwi

formative process and summative assessment in teaching theological reflection in ministry

I teach a course on Theological Reflection. It is a vocational setting. All participants have done an undergraduate theology degree and all are preparing for ministry in a mainline (Presbyterian) context. This trajectory needs to shape the course and two graduate outcomes in particular: one, being attentive theologically to the questions of another in the wider community and two, being able to help a community reflect theologically.

For the last few years, in seeking to attend to these graduate outcomes, I have developed a summative assessment which involves peer review. Students grade (50% along with me) each other’s work, providing both comment and a grade, which I moderate. This attends to the vocational aim of helping a community reflect theologically, which includes being able to assess theological reflection.

However, peer review does not come easily and so I need to provide some opportunity for rehearsal. This includes myself as lecturing doing the assignment. Each year I choose a recent issue and do the assignment (for a 2018 example of reforming ecclesiology in Oceania see here). I provide this “fresh” piece of theological reflection to the class. I give them time to read my model answer and check they are still clear about the assignment. I then ask them to “grade” it. This allows anxieties, fears and understandings to be clarified in community, before they attempt a peer.

Overall, the formative process and the summative assessment has been very generative. It makes clear the vocational endpoints and creates an energy as the class rehearses together. It allows a far greater attentiveness to each other’s work and uniqueness of contexts. While there are anxieties, the interns appreciate engaging more deeply with each other. It’s a really worthwhile process of engaging in capacity building.

Here is a video

explaining Theological reflection assignment Recording from steve taylor on Vimeo.

which explanations more of the why and how, the process and the resources used. The resources and handouts I describe in the video are

• The Christian Theology Reader

• Inquiring After God: Classic and Contemporary Readings

• Assessment marking guide – marking schedule Assignment 1 Theological attentiveness2019

• Case study – of Church as Cathedral of Living Stones – here

For more on theological reflection in this particular vocational space of ministerial formation

• theological reflection as integrating the journey’s of life go here

• theological reflection as decolonising through place-based methodologies go here.