Евангельская реформатская семинария Украины

Introduction

ERSU wants to facilitate the affective (spiritual), cognitive, and practical growth in the lives of its students, in order that they might become faithful servants in the Kingdom of God. This multifaceted growth of the students should become visible in their lives. Through the practical assignments for service in the churches the student’s own calling should become clear to himself and the people in the church.

ERSU wants to work on the transformation of students into able servants of the church. It is clear that the Seminary cannot do much more then to facilitate such a transformation:

1. Essential in the process of transformation of our students is the work of the Holy Spirit. First of all we need prayer for our students - from the churches, the sponsors and the staff.

2. A further essential aspect is the motivation of the students themselves: do the they really want to study the Scriptures, Reformed theology and all that is needed to become well-prepared servants in the church of Christ?

If a student is mainly focused on 'finishing courses' instead of on learning what he wants and needs to know, the Seminary education gets disconnected from its main goal: the transformation of people into well prepared servants of the church!

I. Active learning in ERSU with Portfolio

As a Seminary we want to develop our program and try to make it more effective. We want to stimulate our students to reflect upon their own intellectual and spiritual growth. This will help them to see, in which areas they want to develop more and study deeper.

For this reason we want to promote the concept of ‘active learning’ in which the students themselves take responsibility for their studies and the application of what they learned at ERSU in their lives and service. In order to achieve this goal we will introduce the Portfolio as a required part of studying at ERSU.

I.1. What is Portfolio Learning?

The ‘Port-folio' is an instrument of self-reflection on the intellectual, spiritual and practical growth of the students by themselves under mentorate of the staff. It is used at seminaries and universities all over the world.

A portfolio is a collection of written reflections of the student on his own studies at ERSU and selected Assignments written for Seminary Courses.

On the basis of the Portfolio a student will be able to develop a Personal Development Plan for the studies at ERSU, which allows students to design together with the staff a study plan, which helps him to get the most out of his studies. (about the Personal Development Plan - see below)

I.2. What is the main goal of a portfolio?

First of all: the Portfolio is not in the first place an instrument for the staff to control the student, but it should stimulate the student to reflect on his studies at ERSU.

The Portfolio shows the student’s personal aims and plans: who he is and what he wants to be. It must also show the process of learning and his development as a student and spiritual growth as a future leader in the church. The idea of the portfolio is to:

- stimulate the student himself to reflect more explicitly on his work in the Seminary and its application in his daily life and work

- help the staff to get a clearer idea of the growth of the student - spiritually, intellectually and practically, in order to be able to effectively help and supervise the student.

Reading through the portfolio, questions like the following could find an answer for both the student and the staff:

What was the student’s vision on church, service, Christian life when he entered Seminary?

What is the student’s vision on church, service and Christian life now?

What were the student’s personal aims to enter Seminary?

What did the student learn in ERSU in relation to his personal goals of learning?

How did the student grow intellectually, spirituality and practically?

Which courses or assignments were easier or more difficult? What were the reasons?

What are the strong and weak sides of the student in the key area’s (cognitive, spiritual, practical)?

What does the student want to do to improve his weak areas and how can the staff help with that?

Etc.

In this way the portfolio becomes an educational tool which the student can use to become a self-motivated student, who knows why he studies and what he needs for his development into a useful instrument in the hand of God. The theory of the training at ERSU and the daily experiences of the student meet each other in the development of the student, which should be reflected in the portfolio (see picture).

I.3. What is the content of the Portfolio?

The Portfolio should contain:

1. A copy of the ERSU Application form, in which the students applies for his studies and describes his motivation to enter ERSU.

2. A description of the student's personal learning goals when entering Seminary. Most students are already somehow involved in practical ministry and feel a need to pursue further studies. The better they are aware of their needs, the more they will profit from Seminary.

3. Personal Development Plan which shows in which areas the student would like to grow - either because he sees specific deficiencies or because he has special gifts, which he would like to develop more.

4. Spiritual Development Journal in which the student describes how his development with regard to his character, gifts and his overall spiritual growth.

5. A Semester report of the students' experiences during his studies: an evaluation of the Courses that were taken during that Semester with respect to

- the intellectual content

- the practical use

- if / how the student was personally affected by the Course

An Evaluation Form will be provided by the Seminary.

6. The registrar's report of study progress, which is a tracking sheet on which shows, where the student currently stands within the program: which courses have they attended, completed, which are still incomplete, final grades, and required courses still outstanding.

7. Selected home-work assignments which show how theoretical knowledge is applied in service in the congregation. The student should have 1 graded paper per Course in his Portfolio. (This should be just 1 of the assignments the student has to do for the Course)

8. Practical Work

* yearly 2 selected sermons (sermons the student has actually preached during the year and which he felt good about)

* yearly 2 selected lessons for congregation-members or otherwise (lessons he has to teach anyway as a Course assignment or otherwise)

9. Confidentiality. All Portfolio files will be treated with confidentiality, which means, that the files will not be accessible to others then the staff without the student's explicit consent.

The work on the Portfolio is a strict requirement of ERSU.

Students will receive 1 credit to stimulate them to work on their portfolio.

II. How to actually work with the Portfolio?

Staff

The Dean of students / Director of Student Services will be responsible for the oversight over the Portfolio program. He will stimulate the students to work on their portfolio and keep track on the process, answer questions etc.

Each of the staff-members will supervise a group of students. At least twice a year there should be a personal talk of the supervising professor with each of ‘his’ students – this can be organized during the Seminary sessions or Tutorials. The Portfolio can be used as the basis for a talk about the growth of the student in the key area’s (spiritual, academically and practical).

Students

Students should feel responsible for their own studies and progress. They must learn to reflect on how they study and function in the congregation, how they grow into the role of a Christian leader etc. They should also develop their own study goals while reflecting on their studies (see below: Personal Development Plan).

III. Profiting from the Portfolio

The Portfolio system will only really function, when students and professors will actively work on it. At first glance the Portfolio might seem a nuisance - a lot of extra work and administration. And it is clear that it will take some time to keep the Portfolio updated. But if this happens there will be many positive effects:

students will feel more responsible for their own studies

the students will become more aware of their progress or of areas in which they need to grow

mentors and supervisors will feel more responsibility for the students

ERSU staff will get a clearer picture of the progress or problems of the students

ERSU staff will be in a better position to fine-tune the study-program because they can see more easily if there are structural problems among the students or around certain teaching areas.

III.1. Personal Development Plan

The ultimate goal of ERSU is to facilitate the transformation of the students into mature servants in the church. During the mentoring talks, attention will be paid the student's personal and spiritual development.

Reflection on his studies should lead the student also to the development of a Personal Development Plan, in which he formulates his specific learning needs and goals. This becomes more and more important in the course of the studies, when student become more and more aware of their own deficiencies and of the possibilities for study and their personal interest. ERSU will try to offer possibilities to help students to specialize in those areas, where they feel special needs or where they would like to do more in-depth studies.

Example 1 – a student gets a lot of criticism in his home church - this may refer to different areas of the student’s service: preaching, pastoral care, organisation etc.

A student can asks the supervising staff member to comment on this. Together they can look for a solution if it turns out, that there really is a specific weak area in the student’s service. For instance a student can say: is there a way for me to improve my sermons? Or: I need more knowledge about pastoral care / counseling or pedagogical knowledge for Sunday School work etc. On the basis of the Portfolio and with the help of the staff he can work out a plan how to continue his studies.

Example 2 - a student wants to work more on Hebrew, Missiology, the Reformed doctrine of the sacraments... With the help of the Portfolio he can work out a plan together with the staff.

Example 3 - advanced studies

Some students do very well and might want to continue their studies after finishing ERSU's Master Program - either under supervision of ERSU or somewhere abroad. The portfolio can be helpful to make clear if a student really has the gifts for advanced studies and if the Seminary should support and encourage him in that.

III.2. Input for evaluation and examination

Although the Portfolio contains work (assignments or sermons) that has been graded, in itself the goal of Portfolio is not grading. The goal is to evaluate the progress and development of a student in all areas – cognitive, spiritual and practical. The content of the Portfolio serves as an input for different situations:

Example 1 - mentoring

During the Sessions and Tutorials staff members have many longer or shorter talks with the students. Often we don’t have time to structurally speak with all students. Some students ask for a meeting, others don't. Often the talks are concentrated on a problem we or the student wants to discuss, but the risk is always, that we forget about the more general picture. Portfolio can be a help in this area:

to talk structurally with every student once or twice in a year

to get the whole picture of the student’s situation – from the progress reports etc. we can immediately see if a students has problems with just one Course or with other courses as well; we can get an impression of his workload at home etc.

during the personal meetings with the mentor not only the study progress should be discussed. As the goal of our Seminary also wants to help people to grow spiritually and practically, these talks should also serve to speak about the development of the student in these areas: development of a Christian character, leadership.

The talks about the Portfolio will provide the basis for a short yearly report to the staff about the situation of each student.

Example 2 – student on probation

Quite regularly students who don’t have all credentials for entering ERSU are allowed into the program for one year of probation. The content of the Portfolio may show to the staff of ERSU that a student did make real progress in his studies and that he showed the right motivation in his studies and was able to apply his studies at ERSU in his service in the congregation. In this case the Portfolio gives a basis for full allowance of a student in the program.

Example 3 – study delay

Sometimes students are much longer in the Seminary then seems to be reasonable. Sometimes students themselves are not aware of the fact that they are far behind with respect to finishing Courses and teachers often don't have the full picture. The Portfolio gives a clear overview of the areas of deficiencies, areas of growth and makes it possible to take a decision about further study on the basis of facts. This is helpful both for the student and the staff.