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In my last blog on this site (the first of three parts) I reflected on what difference it could make if theological education institutions focused on formation of students rather than imparting information to them. That blog generated some interesting…
Continue readingRecently a colleague shared with me the concept of “ungrading,” written about eloquently in a couple of blog posts by writing instructor Jesse Strommel. You can find Strommel’s posts here and here. (I highly recommend his blog, in general, as…
Continue readingThis semester I am teaching a class called Theology and the Arts. In this class we are engaging the earth with the five senses of the body. During our last class we engaged the sense of vision and read about…
Continue readingIn Part I of this series on “Using Art to Activate Learning in the Classroom,” I discussed how the arts are powerful resources that can be used in the classroom to amplify and enhance our teaching-learning experiences. As social practices,…
Continue readingA tense moment in my classroom captured some of the changing dynamics at my seminary. We were learning about the rise of higher criticism within the history of biblical interpretation in the United States. As we were analyzing a lecture…
Continue readingTeaching through pandemic brought home two basic lessons to me: What happens in our students’ lives affects their performance in the classroom. Professors are mere human beings who can only do so much before our health suffers. Both seem obvious….
Continue readingA couple of years after joining the faculty at Concordia Seminary, I decided to audition for the Saint Louis Civic Orchestra, a community orchestra made up of professional, semiprofessional, and accomplished amateur musicians from the greater St. Louis metropolitan area….
Continue readingWHAT DIVERSITY IS DOING If you are on the underside of it—on the wrong end of the seeming hospitable invitation—you are likely surviving diversity. Diversity is hardly a cordial experience. It is tolerated, lived through—sometimes agonizingly. To understand this sentiment,…
Continue readingIt’s a heavy time at our university. The pandemic is still with us (a funny/not-funny tweet I read recently said, “i didn’t realize 2020 was gonna be a trilogy”). Within the first few weeks of class, I had six students…
Continue readingDo not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds… Romans 12:2a (NRSV) Students are stressed today, and Omicron is not the only culprit. Twenty-four-hour access to social media and our preoccupation with it…
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