In my travels around the world, I’ve seen several trends in theological education, which partly correspond to trends in tertiary education, and declining religious adherence. Seminary enrolments are generally down, more so in non-denominational seminaries than denominational ones, in some places it’s concerning, while in other places it’s dire.
This is more a comment on teaching and learning generally rather than seminary specifically, but another advantage of structured courses is that solid assessment and testing practices also matter for the purposes of learning and retention. Reading books or watching lectures is not learning in and of itself. You need to be engaging in a lot of work, either teacher-led or self-led like questioning, verbalisation, arguing on the basis of evidence etc in order to retain information, and retention is probably the most critical and underrated aspect of learning in today's day and age. Cognitive scientist Dan Willingham says "memory is the residue of thought" - if you passively receive a lecture but aren't pushed to think about what was in it, you won't be able to learn it.
25 years ago, I served on a board of directors at a seminary, and we were already wrestling with these issues. We would have benefited greatly from these insights. In the college where I taught, we moved to only 20 hours of instruction for lay people who wanted a degree and assigned great books on the subject from leading scholars to read outside of class, etc...
I dropped out of an MDiv degree and switched to MABTS as I wasn't interested in ordination. What I've found satisfying was the curated content. As you pointed out there's a lot of free, quality content out there but to disseminate, understand, and synthesize knowledge requires a steady discourse with someone who is trained. Despite my being in an online class I still find the lectures captivating often clarifying the murkier parts of my weekly reading. The book reviews have been helpful in shaping my critical thinking skills. My friends who are largely self-taught struggle with engaging material which I think is what a structured program like an MABTS or an MDiv provides.
I agree. One of my decisions to attend seminary was to help curate the information I would receive if I read every book I could get my hands on. My seminary offered a degree for lay people I could take entirely online. They also have hybrid sessions where you spend a weekend with the professor and students in your class. As much as I enjoyed my education, meeting the professors and sharing the journey with other students was the most rewarding part.
This is more a comment on teaching and learning generally rather than seminary specifically, but another advantage of structured courses is that solid assessment and testing practices also matter for the purposes of learning and retention. Reading books or watching lectures is not learning in and of itself. You need to be engaging in a lot of work, either teacher-led or self-led like questioning, verbalisation, arguing on the basis of evidence etc in order to retain information, and retention is probably the most critical and underrated aspect of learning in today's day and age. Cognitive scientist Dan Willingham says "memory is the residue of thought" - if you passively receive a lecture but aren't pushed to think about what was in it, you won't be able to learn it.
25 years ago, I served on a board of directors at a seminary, and we were already wrestling with these issues. We would have benefited greatly from these insights. In the college where I taught, we moved to only 20 hours of instruction for lay people who wanted a degree and assigned great books on the subject from leading scholars to read outside of class, etc...
I dropped out of an MDiv degree and switched to MABTS as I wasn't interested in ordination. What I've found satisfying was the curated content. As you pointed out there's a lot of free, quality content out there but to disseminate, understand, and synthesize knowledge requires a steady discourse with someone who is trained. Despite my being in an online class I still find the lectures captivating often clarifying the murkier parts of my weekly reading. The book reviews have been helpful in shaping my critical thinking skills. My friends who are largely self-taught struggle with engaging material which I think is what a structured program like an MABTS or an MDiv provides.
I agree. One of my decisions to attend seminary was to help curate the information I would receive if I read every book I could get my hands on. My seminary offered a degree for lay people I could take entirely online. They also have hybrid sessions where you spend a weekend with the professor and students in your class. As much as I enjoyed my education, meeting the professors and sharing the journey with other students was the most rewarding part.
I find that blogs like this one are helpful in deciding what's worth reading, and in evaluating what I've read.
There's not enough time to waste it on reading rubbish. :)