Trevecca has partnered with the Africa Region of Nazarene Missions International to make Trevecca’s online Master of Science degree program in instructional design and technology (MSIDT) accessible to a group of training providers in Africa.
The partnership, the first of its kind in the Nazarene higher education system, is designed to help regional education coordinators provide more flexible clergy training by teaching them to move their curriculum to an online format. A tuition discount is provided for students participating in the global effort.
Four students from African countries including Kenya and Nigeria are the first participants in the program, and are part of a Trevecca MSIDT cohort that launched on September 20. The degree program covers areas of instruction like programming, methods of training and course delivery and effective instruction design. Alongside the other students in the same cohort, these four international students will get hands-on experience using the latest digital technologies to develop dynamic and engaging training modules and online courses.
A ripple effect is expected as the four students gain expertise and are then deployed to train other educators. Their training will be shared throughout the nine institutions of higher education that are part of the Association of Nazarene Education Systems in Africa (ANESA).
“We are starting with just a handful of people, but this is going to impact thousands of students and future pastors,” Trevecca President Dr. Dan Boone said.
The partnership began when Dr. Gabriel Benjiman, the regional education and clergy development coordinator for the Church of the Nazarene in Africa, connected with Boone through a global Nazarene education committee where Boone was a guest speaker on the topic of Trevecca’s instructional design program. Benjiman, a Trevecca graduate himself, was seeking solutions to make online curriculum available to Africa’s educators in the church who operate within a broad range of technological conditions.
“Africa is a region with a very diverse group of countries and infrastructures, and new skills in instructional design will help our educators bring our training content into alignment with individual national frameworks,” Benjiman said. “We are grateful for the partnership and support of our administrators, field strategy coordinators and others who have helped make this vision a reality.”
Trevecca partnerships in other regions are possible down the road.
“Language and technology are a few factors we have to consider in extending this opportunity to more students around the globe, but the potential is there to help more Nazarene educators find a new platform for pastoral instruction,” Boone said. “This is work that fits well with Trevecca’s mission to develop servant leaders, and we’re excited to see where we might be called from here.”
