Philosophy
How Continuing Education Relates to God’s World: God is the Creator of individuals according to the Christian worldview. God brings individuals into existence for the ultimate purpose of knowing God and living in right relationship with God. Additionally, the God of the Bible has asserted, "It is not good for [humans] to be alone (Gen. 2:18). God therefore created humans to exist most fruitfully in various social contexts. God has revealed through the Christian Scriptures three basic social creations that enhance individuals, the Family, the Community and the Church. Education (teaching and learning) is at the heart of these social creations. The Logos Institute is a continuing education institute that seeks to strengthen people in their family, social and church roles. We do this by providing the value and excitement of life-long learning.
Three Educational Goals: As Christians and educators, we believe the God of the Bible is the ultimate Creator and source of "all truth." This belief justifies our personal search for "God’s truth" in all areas of “knowledge.” Accordingly, we have three distinctive educational goals that direct our pursuit of God’s truth.
Clarification: One goal of distinctively Christian education should be clarification. What are the distinctive beliefs of the Christian worldview in comparison with other worldviews? We think Christian education should seek to clarify what is unique about the Christian faith. We also think Christians in a pluralistic age should clarify what Christians can justifiably believe in common with competing worldviews. Thus, we try to clarify the unique truth claims of The Christian Tradition.
Justification: A second goal of Christian education should be one of justification. Why should any of us believe in Christ and the Christian faith? Christian education should seek to answer this question in the spirit of free inquiry and study. Accordingly, we attempt to discover and empower students to discover why we should believe in Jesus Christ and the Christian faith.
Integration: A third goal of Christian teachers and students should be one of integration. How can Christian teachers and students integrate "All truth is God’s truth" into all areas of their lives? We think Christ-centered continuing education should examine how to understand, live and apply faith in Christ in all areas of our lives.
Objective and Subjective learning: We think humans are capable of both objective and subjective learning. Objective learning is knowledge about things outside or independent of our personal lives. Subjective learning is learning that applies inside to our personal lives and situations. We think individuals who learn both objectively and subjectively are more likely to apply what they study to life situations.
In objective learning, we attempt to help students move from factual knowledge to the interpretation of facts. To do this, we travel together through stages of how people learn. The first stage is comprehension, or understanding facts. Then we can move to application, how facts and knowledge may apply to life. Then, we engage in analysis, a tearing apart of facts and knowledge. Finally, we are ready for synthesis, the bringing together of objective and subjective knowledge personally gained by the student.
In subjective learning, we encouragestudents to internalize personally the knowledge they gain by their minds. Beginning with the reception of knowledge, we then ask ourselves to respond by discussions and explanations. We encourage ourselves to value knowledge by making choices. Then we can proceed to an understanding of things to be valued. Ultimately, we hope to internalize and act consistently with the knowledge we most value. These steps help us establish a personal relationship with the knowledge we gain by our minds.
We think holistic teaching combines both objective and subjective dimensions. Excellent teaching involves intellectual competency and excitement. These areenhanced by clarity of communication and when education is shared in a personal and humane manner. The resulting interpersonal rapport between students and teachers increases educational motivation, enjoyment and independent learning.
Ways of Learning: Pedagogy, Andragogy and Synergogy: The learning patterns of children and mature adults are essential to understand why we teach as we do at The Logos Institute. Children tend toward passivity, adults toward involvement, in their learning patterns. Children are limited by their lack of age and experience. This causes them to focus on the subject to be learned. Age and experience have expanded adults. This leads adults to focus on realistic forms of knowledge that may solve real life problems. Children tend to be motivated by external factors (grades, approval, social status, etc.). Adults tend to be motivated by internal factors such as the usefulness of knowledge, personal needs and self-esteem. Children focus on acquiring units of knowledge. Adults tend to ask how knowledge will alter and better their performance in life. Traditional college students are always somewhere on this scale, moving toward the mature stage of life-long learning.
Pedagogy: The Greek word for “child or infant” (paidion) helps us understand Pedagogic education. The teaching model that drives pedagogy is the authority of the expert (the teacher). The teacher authoritatively transmits “knowledge” to the students. The dependent, inexperienced child relies passively upon the authoritative "parental" teacher to determine what they should learn. Motivation to learn for the child is an external locus of control, the teacher. The teacher expects the dependent student to absorb this subject-centered body of knowledge and meet the teacher’s definition of successful learning.
Andragogy: The Greek verb for “act like an adult” (andraizomai) enables us to understand Andragogy, an adult style of education. The larger life experiences of adults foster within them a sense of independence. Life situations that have revealed a need for knowledge create within adult learners a task-centered orientation toward knowledge and education. Motivation to learn for adults is an internal locus of control, their own felt needs. The inspiration for Andragogy is the life situations and felt needs for knowledge of the adult learner. Consequently, instructors must demonstrate relevance of the knowledge they offer to the felt needs for knowledge within the adult learner.
Synergogy: The Greek word for “work” (ergon) enables us to understand Synergogy as a “working together” style of education that involves structured interactions between members of an educational "team." These teams are comprised of senior members (instructors) and junior members (students). Synergogy instructors suggest resources and structured learning activities for the learning team. These structured interactions result in the stimulation of learning among all team members. One consequence of Synergogy is that the educational team together experiences and defines learning. The open-ended consequences of this educational style tend to stimulate the ability of students to apply knowledge they gain to problems they may face in their lives.
Logos Institute education avoids “distance” in students. Distance is the opposite of active involvement in gaining and applying knowledge. Rigid education (Pedagogy) increases “distance” in students. Synergogic (working together) education stimulates student involvement. Logos Institute education encourages students to apply the knowledge they gain to the various situations they face in their lives.
Logos Institute education also embraces “change agency.” Change agency is teachers learning and changing along with the other team members. Such teachers are more likely to understand how abstract knowledge relates to life because they expect to learn and change along with the other team members. We try to foster entire educational teams that relate knowledge to life situations faced by the entire team.
We design our courses to maximize the synergogic style of learning, promote andragogical learning and minimize pedagogy. Our teachers embrace change agency and expect to change and grow along with students. We hope students will reject distance in favor of personal involvement in their journey into spiritual maturity. As we open ourselves to Jesus Christ, The Logos Institute hopes to grow into empowered teachers and students who discover why we believe in Jesus Christ and what Jesus has equipped each of us to do with the knowledge we gain. “From Christ the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work.”
