Category: school

162 pages stuck in the mail today. The Final Project Proposal is officially over. Implementation begins now. 🙂

interested in reading what i have been working on for my d.min? well here is the final draft edition of the proposal for my dissertation. you are welcome to read it and if you see a typo or something that i missed please don’t hesitate to let me know. i will not send this in until sometime tomorrow. it is 73 pages long and it is only the proposal. truthfully most of it is pretty boring because it is setting the stage for the project itself.

establishing the foundation for my d.min project/dissertation (which is a study concerning the effectiveness of collaborative sermon preparation) is done through by establishing an annotated bibliography that is evaluated by a recognized expert in the field to make sure that it represents the general thought and discussion of the field. it is similar to the literature reviews that other fields do as an initial part of their studies.

i have been corresponding with dr. wesley allen of lexington seminary and author of “the homiletic of all believers” to develop the annotated bib for my project. yesterday morning dr. allen said it looked good. i was so thrilled that i shouted loud enough to wake noah up.  thus my tweet yesterday.

THE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY HAS BEEN APPROVED! BOOM SHACKALAKA. Now all that is necessary is to get the proposal to Dr. Lemke's standards.

— Robert Terrell (@ratterrell) June 13, 2012

i felt pretty good about the books i was using for the foundation of the project before i corresponded with dr. allen but I AM THRILLED with the books that talking with him led me to consider. thanks to the used books on amazon i was able to get them for next to nothing. i think the most i spent on any of the books is $6. most of them i was able to buy for $3-$4.

here is the annotated bibliography for anyone who is interested.

the remaining steps for finishing my project proposal are:

• receive edits from dr. lemke (my faculty mentor) and update paper.
• have paper reviewed by d.min reader to make sure it is ready to be submitted.
• have paper read by dr. ogea associate dean of the professional doctorate program to make sure it is ready to be submitted.
• submit the proposal to the professional doctorate committee for approval.

once it is approved i can begin to work on the actual study. yeah.

one of the things i am discovering from working on my d.min project/dissertation is how generous most academics are with their time and unfortunately how non-generous some others are. i have written before concerning how amazed i was with the incredibly fast and positive response of those involved with john stott ministries and the incredibly slow and negative response from a couple of people i would have considered friends or at least strong acquaintances (if you can’t tell i’m still a little bitter about this but i am trying to let it go). as i finish my proposal and prepare to submit it i am again amazed by the generosity of the many academics with whom i have talked. two different professors at uwsp have willingly loaned me their time and expertise. my research has absolutely nothing to do with their research. they have nothing to gain from helping me (other than maybe a cup of coffee or some homemade cookies) and yet they are very willing to review things for me and make suggestions for improvement. i am very thankful for their help.

the latest example of this is dr. maggie watson, a professor in the communicative disorders department, who has graciously agreed to review the survey i will use to quantify my research. i felt pretty good about the survey i had originally developed. i modeled it on several others i found in other people’s research. you can see it here. pam recommended that i run it past maggie. pam said she is a wiz when it comes to this stuff. so i asked her and she has been gracious enough to evaluate it. her changes were small but should make a dramatic difference in the data i garner from my research. you can see it here. one small change she suggested that i believe will make a huge difference is to never have odd numbered choices on the survey. i had originally asked them to answer “strongly agree / agree / undecided / disagree / strongly disagree.” maggie suggested getting rid of the “undecided” choice by either going to 4 or 6 possibilities (i went with 6). this forces the one tested to make a choice. brilliant.

anyhow i have been pleasantly surprised, though i probably shouldn’t be because it seems typical of most of the ones i conversed with, by how generous with their time the academics i have corresponded with have been concerning my research.

for those of you who are interested here is the doctrinal foundations section of my final project proposal for my d.min. the goal is to finish the proposal this weekend and get it proofed and approved by my faculty mentor in time for the june committee. this would mean that i should be able to finish the research over the summer and have the report in with time to spare for graduation in december. woohoo!

this is just the first draft so a great deal will change before it is finished. i cannot express enough how thankful i am for pam. she helps so much with my studies.

final project proposal – doctrinal foundations section

this past week has been pretty busy with my normal stuff, quite a few tapestry related gatherings, and i had to finish my last paper for the pastoral counseling d. min seminar that i took in october. i don’t think it is my best work but it will do considering they stuff that was going on and the fact that i’ve been fighting a cold. while i don’t think the paper is my best work i am fascinated by the national marriage project’s annual report the state of our unions.

anyhow here’s my marriage and family issue paper for anyone who wants to read it.

while it is not finalized with nobts yet the syllabus for the supervised self directed study i want to do for my next d.min seminar has been approved by dr. holcomb, the prof who will be supervising my study. i’ll finish up going through the paper work with nobts tomorrow. for now i am pretty pumped about getting to focus on studying the TRINITY and jürgen moltmann’s thoughts on it.

for those that are interested here is the syllabus that i developed for this study.

i know most of you do not care a bit about looking at the syllabus but i thought i would post it for the random searches that have come my way because of people doing searches on seminars for d.min programs.