Online seminars at the Oates Institute provide an exciting new approach to lifelong learning by connecting learners, resources, and faculty in an online learning community
The Wayne E. Oates Institute offers 40-45 Online Seminars each year to provide convenient learning opportunities utilizing an online approach for reflective learning with colleagues. These small group seminars feature presentations and interaction on specific topics over a 3-week period using Email discussion. Each week the peer group interacts around a new presentation to share insights in light of their own experiences and context. Online seminars provide the opportunity to participate from any location according to each person’s individual scheduling needs.
April 12-30, 2010 Facilitator: TBA 12.0 contact hours
Many events during these early years of the 21st century have magnified the need for individuals and communities to understand the healing power of forgiveness. Whether in the shadows of 9/11/01 in the United States, in the villages of Darfur, in an Amish school yard in Pennsylvania, on the campus of Virginia Tech, in the streets of an impoverished community, or in a bedroom; we become increasingly aware of our need to understand how forgiveness can improve the human condition.
How do we choose to forgive? How do we forgive? What are the effects of holding a grudge or seeking revenge? Can we find a way to balance our need for security with the potential to grant forgiveness? To balance our needs for justice with the redemptive healing potential of forgiveness?
This seminar provides the opportunity to participate in an interdisciplinary collaborative learning experience. Using email, members of the seminar group will explore the issues of forgiveness by reflecting on the presented material in light of their own experience and context. Through this process the group benefits by learning from one another as well as from the presentations.
Continuing Education Credit:
As a participant in this online seminar you may earn 12 contact hours of continuing education credit by reading the presentations and participating in the discussion. To receive continuing education credits you must contribute at least 2 posts per week to the discussion -- one reflecting on the presentations in light of your personal experience and the other responding to one of your colleague’s reflections or inquiries. The evaluation form submitted at the end of the seminar serves as the CEU application. Following your submission of this form you will receive your CEU certificate.
This seminar is approved for CEUs by the National Board of Certified Counselors.
Registration:
The seminar is limited to 12 participants. Registration for members of the Oates Institute is free and only $60 for non-members.
"The blessed child is one who is affirmed and loved by those responsible for the child's care, usually the parents," writes Dr. Myron Madden in his book, The Power to Bless. "But no child seems to get enough blessing to last a lifetime. As we move through adolescence and into adulthood, we have the need for affirmation beyond the family."
Through peer dialogue reflecting on writings by Dr. Myron Madden (The Power To Bless) and three popular films, seminar participants will reflect on the meaning of blessing. Participants will also explore the interaction between parents and children in the giving and receiving of blessing along with the giving and receiving of blessing outside the family.
Presentations and Films (one per week):
"Blessing As Gift" by Myron Madden, Ph.D. Film: October Sky
Questions About the Blessing" by Myron Madden, Ph.D. Film: Whale Rider
"Returning the Blessing" by Myron Madden, Ph.D. Film: Finding Forrester
Learning Objectives:
Following this seminar, participants should be able to:
Recognize the presence and/or absence of blessing within one's self and others.
Interpret the Old Testament practices of blessing in light of contemporary practices we observe within families and beyond families.
Articulate an understanding of what Myron Madden describes as the "Power to Bless."
Recognize who holds the power to bless in a given context.
Identify situations where elders are seeking, and needing, the blessing of younger persons.
Help those to whom we minister find and/or grant blessing.
Registration and Continuing Education Credit
This seminar features the Oates Institute's Connected Learning approach and is limited to 12 participants. It offers 12 contact hours of continuing education for ministers, counselors, chaplains, and social workers. To qualify for the CEUs participants are expected to read the presentations and participate in the email discussion by contributing at least 2 email messages per week. One message is to reflect on the presentations or case studies in light of one's personal experience and context and the second is to respond to someone else’s reflection or inquiry.
Members of the Oates Institute may register for free, others may register for only $60.
Finding Hope When There Is No Cure -- April 12-30, 2010
Written by Christopher Hammon
Wednesday, 17 February 2010 14:47
Finding HopeWhen There Is No Cure
April 12-30, 2010
Facilitator: David Dillard, D. Min.
12 contact hours
How do we help patients, clients, parishioners, or family members find and sustain hope when they encounter challenges such as the diagnosis of terminal cancer, an accident resulting in major trauma, or a lifestyle altering chronic illness? What is hope and how can it transcend what may be a shallow optimism? How can one experience healing that does not include curing? How can we discover our personal narratives of hope and in so doing help others discover theirs?
This is a seminar that seeks to address these and other questions with the recognition that a cure is not always possible. It is a seminar that seeks to help clergy, chaplains, counselors, social workers, and pastoral care givers address questions of faith and hope in the face of chronic or terminal illness. Through presentations by Dr. James Travis, Dr. Leslie Kendrick, and Dr. James Hyde combined with three weeks of email discussion, seminar participants will be asked to reflect on and explore ways to find hope when there is no cure.
Presentations (one per week):
"A Hope That Does Not Disappoint" by James Travis, Ph.D.
"Cancer and the Redemption of Hope" by Leslie Smith Kendrick, Ph.D.
"Facing Terminal Illness: Narratives of Hope" by James Hyde, Ph.D.
Learning Objectives:
Differentiate between healthy hope and optimism; making a distinction between realistic and false hope.
Encourage others to find meaning in a broader definition of "healing" that goes beyond cure.
Recognize new possibilities for how they can help families or individuals recover a sense of hope.
Acknowledge the value of one's story as a means for restoring and creating a new and hopeful vision of reality, even in the face of situations that do not present a cure.
Continuing Education Credit:
As a participant in this online seminar you may earn 12 contact hours of continuing education credit by reading the presentations and participating in the discussion. To receive continuing education credits you must contribute at least 2 posts per week to the discussion -- one reflecting on the presentations in light of your personal experience and the other responding to one of your colleague’s reflections or inquiries. The evaluation form submitted at the end of the seminar serves as the CEU application. Following your submission of this form you will receive your CEU certificate.
This seminar is approved for CEUs by the National Board of Certified Counselors and is accepted as approved continuing professional education for chaplains, pastoral counselors, pastors, and social workers.
Registration:
The seminar is limited to 12 participants. Registration for members of the Oates Institute is free and only $60 for non-members.
Presenters: A. Christopher Hammon, D.Min. and Marie McCanless, M.Div.
12 contact hours
And who are the NetGens, you ask. Also known as the Millennials, Generation Y, and BabyBoom2, the Net Generation refers to the first generation to grow up native to computers and digital networks. This group, born between 1977-1997, is beginning to move into the workplace and into community, organizational, and congregational leadership. NetGens are ready to engage collaboratively, openly, energetically, and creatively; but they are coming with their own defining values, a new pedagogy, new ideas about leadership, and new ways to create and contribute value.As they move into these roles, they are changing our world and the way we do things.
This seminar is an introduction to working and ministering with NetGens. During this seminar we will engage in conversation around the eight defining norms and the new leadership ideas identified by Don Tapscott in his research (Growing Up Digital, Wikinomics, and GrownUp Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World) along with looking at various other examples of what is emerging. We particularly will look at what all of this means for our relationships with NetGens as we work and minister alongside them.
The presenters for this seminar are Dr. Chris Hammon and Marie McCanless. Chris is the Oates Institute's resident digital pioneer. Introduced to ARPNet and the potential of what was to come by Buckminster Fuller in 1970, Chris has been working in the online environment since 1980. Chris is also part of the Global Online faculty with the Doctor of Ministry Program at Drew University's Theological School in New Jersey, a member of the Society for the Advancement of Continuing Education for Ministry, a member of the Society for Organizational Learning, and a member of the College of Pastoral Leaders.
Marie McCanless is a recent graduate of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, currently completing a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education, and a member of the Net Generation. She is originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, and is anticipating starting a Ph.D. program soon and working with young adults in the future.
The seminar is limited to 12 participants -- come with hard hats, life jackets, and imagination. Registration for members of the Oates Institute is free and only $60 for non-members.
Registration is not yet available for May seminars
Current Seminars
February 8-26, 2010
(Click on the links below to go to your seminar home pages, access codes required.)
Finding HopeWhen There Is No Cure
And who are the NetGens, you ask. Also known as the Millennials, Generation Y, and BabyBoom2, the Net Generation refers to the first generation to grow up native to computers and digital networks. This group, born between 1977-1997, is beginning to move into the workplace and into community, organizational, and congregational leadership. NetGens are ready to engage collaboratively, openly, energetically, and creatively; but they are coming with their own defining values, a new pedagogy, new ideas about leadership, and new ways to create and contribute value.As they move into these roles, they are changing our world and the way we do things.
r" by Dr. Jane Marie Thibault
