PM102OL - Critical Review

PM102OL - Highlights and Lowlights

The final grade was posted a couple days ago for PM102OL which means it's time to reflect on how things went in the course.  So I'll offer a critical review of the class and my performance throughout.  As with any endeavor, there were things that were done well, and things that could have been done better.  Without pulling any punches, here are my highlights and lowlights.

PM102OL -Evangelism

There are a lot of different ways to evaluate a class and my intention is to be as objective as possible.  However, it's also important to gauge how subjectively valuable the course was to me personally and how much it contributes to my personal goals in attending DTS.  So this breakdown will cover the gamut in terms of criteria.  I like the format that I used for reviewing my last class, so you'll forgive me for just sticking with that script.

Professor: Dr. Jones (in the lectures) is a very engaging lecturer and an outstanding guide to Scripture.  For this class, we read the Gospel of Mark where Dr. Jones brought a fascinating perspective to a very familiar text.  In story-like fashion, we explored the richness and depth of the cultural setting which really brought out the significance of the message Mark was delivering.  This he carried over effectively into his lectures on evangelism.  It's all about having a conversation.  Demystifying evangelism is a key component of the learning in this course and he prepared his students well for a life lived for sharing the good news of the gospel.

Texts:  There were 3 primary texts for the class; True Evangelism by Lewis Sperry Chafer, The Reason for God by Tim Keller, and a third text chosen from a list of options.  For my third reading, I requested an exception to read The Roman Catholic Controversy by James White which Dr. Murphy (course professor) agreed to allow me to read.  All three texts contributed positively to the learning and the discussions for different reasons.  I especially enjoyed the books by Chafer and White as these were both engaging, educational, well organized, and easy to read.  After each book, a two-page synopsis of key learning items and personal application were developed.

Online Format: No complaints here.  This course was paced extremely well and I never felt rushed to get through any of the lectures.  When integrated with the learning assignments, it was just a real smooth class that kind of hummed along.  The only challenge I had was that I actually finished all my lectures way ahead of time which left me with a pretty long gap (about a month) to prepare my final project.  While this may sound great, I had the fight the temptation of relaxing to keep chipping away at my final project.

Graduate Teaching Assistant:  Once again, I was blessed with a really great GTA.  He was helpful, very responsive to my emails, and gave me a proper amount of guidance towards my final project.  When I hit one little speedbump in my assignment work, he was gracious and gave me another couple days to complete one of my assignments (I came down with a flu-like virus and needed a couple more days to arrange one of my interviews).  At this point in my studies, I can't say how pleased I have been with all of my GTAs, and this course was no exception.

Grading: I'm not going to comment on the video lectures or the reading assignments as those are just checklist tasks that have to be completed.  After that, there were 3 major areas of grading; personal testimony paper, personal interviews, and a final gospel project.  I was very pleased with all the assignments as they are very practical and useful outside of the classroom environment.

I was especially pleased with the opportunity to write a personal testimony from an evangelistic perspective.  What started out as a simple project assignment turned out to be a very practical paper that I've had an opportunity to discuss and share in my own evangelistic outreach locally.  While the paper is primarily about my journey of receiving grace through faith, it's really about the gospel.  I think in the coming weeks I'll actually post it on my blog.

Next, the interviews were really just conversations about God with those outside the faith around me.  Sharing the gospel is about having a conversation, not just preaching the good news.  These activities forced me to do a lot more listening and a lot less talking.  Four of the six interviews that I held actually led to a discussion about the gospel where I was able to clearly share the gospel.  This activity brought some discipline and patience to my evangelistic approach for which I'm grateful.

Finally, the gospel project formed the capstone of all the learning in the course.  I decided to develop a gospel tract to evangelize people within the church.  Weird you say?  Perhaps a little bit but there is a reason the Scriptures call us to examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith and this tract looks at that from several different angles.  I may publish this as well, but there are a few things I actually want to tweak before I do so.  To be continued.

Overall I found the grading to be timely, objective, and fair.  I received good feedback on all my assignments and they were graded very promptly which is always encouraging and helped me prepare for my next round of assignments.

Time Commitment:  I spent nearly 3.24 hours per credit hour per week on this course for a total of roughly 6.5 hours per week.  I totaled about 104 hours of work over the course of the semester.  This was perhaps the best-organized class I've taken thus far in terms of having a properly balanced workload.  For a 2 credit course, this was spot on.

Learning Objectives:  This class definitely satisfied all of the learning objectives of the course set out in the beginning.  The learning assignments supported the teaching well and I have grown and learned a lot that I can put into practice in my work, my community, and my church.

Personal Impact:  Evangelism is invigorating.  The things I've learned in this class didn't change the message of the gospel (the gospel never changes), but it did add to how I present the gospel.  I'm definitely more patient in my discussions and much more organized in my presentation.

Overall:  Loved the class.  This course in the future is going to get folded into the Spiritual Life course where the material will be combined.  I hope the learning assignments and teaching remain similar as it really was a great and valuable course.

Highlights:

• Online format affords a high degree of flexibility in managing time for completing assignments.
• Faculty and staff are highly committed to the students and their learning.
• Online format delivers information in multiple formats which significantly enhances the ability to learn and retain information (video, audio, transcripts).
• This class forces you to engage in conversations with others from a gospel perspective.  You may have to stretch yourself to talk about faith and the gospel but that is a great thing.
• This course demystifies personal evangelism in very practical ways.
• Learning assignments supported the material well and were interesting and quite frankly, fun.
• Grading was forgiving and supported the student's application of the material.

Lowlights:

• Don't laugh, but I would have liked to have been challenged with even more personal interviews with others.  Of course, the point is, nothing is stopping me now from doing so.

So How Did I Do?

Please keep in mind that I am only a part-time student and have taken only four credits this semester.  Therefore, I was able to focus an appropriate amount of time on this course.  That may not have been the case with a full course load...

All in all the course was well paced, engaging, and quite frankly fun.  When all was said and done, I received an A+ in the course for which I'm very pleased.  But more than a grade, I'm pleased with what I've learned and the principles that I'll carry with me in life long after my time at DTS is completed.