Today I thought carefully about General Conference broadcasts through a distance educator's eyes. Based on Moore's theory about the types of interaction, General Conference is an interesting mix of learner-learner, learner-teacher, and learner-content interactions.
General Conference consists of five two-hour sessions, where a prophet and apostles speak from a building in Salt Lake City to the whole world. There are over 13 million members of the church around the world, with many of these people tuning in through radio, satellite, or the internet to listen to the speakers. These people may or may not be f2f with others in the same room tuning in at a distance. In truth, many of the people actually get a better view of the speakers on their TV's or internet than those who attend f2f in Salt Lake City due to the sheer size of the meetinghouse.
Who do we consider the teacher in this setting? If the speakers are considered the teacher, it is important to note that the only immediate feedback they can observe from those being taught is whether or not they hear laughter at their jokes or an amen at the end of their remarks. Almost no option exists for finding out whether people are receiving the messages being sent. So the learner-teacher interaction should more accurately be labeled the teacher-learner interaction because it is so one-directional. Learners can receive the content but that is all. And the teachers have personal relationships with practically none of the people they are speaking too. If we consider the Godhead as the teacher, (God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost), then we know that individualized learning is occurring with millions of people simultaneously because 1)God knows the needs of each of his individually learning children and can teach them plainly according to their own understanding and 2) the Holy Ghost is not bound by limits of time, attention, or energy like a human teacher is. This is an interesting illustration to me of the principle described in the Church's missionary manual Preach My Gospel: "The Holy Ghost is the power by which we teach and learn." So highly effective learner-teacher interaction is going on during General Conference, but the teachers would be pretty helpless without the medium of the Holy Ghost.
At first I was surprised to realize the effectiveness of General Conference as distance ed based on how relatively limited the technologies involved are and the massive number of learners. Then I considered that much of the learner-content interaction and especially the learner-learner interaction occurs after the actually conference is over. We hear the content once as learners, but review talks for months afterwards individually as well as in church classes, home and visiting teaching settings, and family home evenings. And although the powerful experience of watching conference establishes instantly an expanded sense of the community aspect of the church, that aspect is reinforced in the weeks to follow as everyone in the church is talking about the same speakers and same principles discussed in the five sessions that occurred months ago. Once it occurs, conference becomes part of an existing culture in the Church that greatly facilitates its review and application. Most of this church culture happens face to face.
In general, then, (he he he), General Conference is not standalone distance ed. It is a distance ed experience that blends in with a largely face to face learning environment, at least for the learners involved. My takeaway from trying to articulate this perspective is that in any situation where I'm seeking to teach ANY content, whether at a distance or face to face, I should strive to enlist the Spirit to compensate for inadequacies in technology or my own pedagogy.
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2 comments:
That was a really interesting post. General conference is a very unique learning environment, but very powerful as you outlined. Without question, the spirit can always enhance a learning environment, but I am not sure how we will be able to get the same effect as general conference.
One of the dynamics is that people watch it because they are commanded to as part of their discipleship, and their obedience is based on their relationship with the Savior. Others watch because it is tradition I suppose.
Also, the purpose of conference is to keep people on the path to eternal life, which is vastly more important that any other content we are likely to teach.
So like I said, I am not sure that it is possible to replicate the effects of general conference is normal education, but it is certainly a truth that any environment is better when it is permeated by the spirit.
Great post!
I agree that general conference is only 1 component of a blended model. In fact, if you notice the way the Church has altered things in the past decade (or less), we now use the general conference talks more prominently/purposefully in our Sunday mtgs (the 4th Sunday). So where it used to be more of a distance thing, it's become more blended.
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