I saw a tweet in the middle of the day – wish I could find it now – that remarked on the irony of a day full of lectures delivered to a roomful of people who love to decry the utility of lectures as a learning tool.

Book 6 // Creating Significant Learning Experiences

Posted March 6, 2010 by Charles
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My Review

The author begins this book in a truly maddening fashion. If I hadn’t needed to finish at least half of it for class I wouldn’t have bothered reading past page 5. The opening quote, which inspired the title (probably not the ideas though, as we’ll see later) actually turns “teachers” into a pejorative: “We won’t meet the needs for more and better higher education until professors become designers of learning experiences and not teachers.” What in the world is teaching, if not designing learning experiences? Any class you plan ahead of time (teaching out of the copy of Wired you read on the bus that morning does count) is a designed learning experience; it may not be a good one, but it fits the descriptor.

For the next few pages he goes on a remarkably cliche rant about traditional methods and citing graduates’ lack of knowledge as an indictment of those lazy professors who “repeat the same practices…for years.” He suggests that a college graduate’s inability to date the Civil War between 1850 and 1900 is the result of poor college instruction, but I’m pretty sure that should have been covered more than once by eighth grade. You can forgive a prof for not including it on the American History exam.

He also suggests that students who take an intro class freshman year (with no later courses in the discipline) should be able to remember the specifics of the material 5 or 10 years later. This is horrifically unrealistic, and makes for an unhelpful criticism.

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Psalm 31

Posted March 5, 2010 by Charles
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I did some graphics representing Psalm 31 for a class assignment last week, and I figured I’d share them. If you like them and think they have some use let me know, I might do more.

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Good Theology with a Good Bass Lick

Posted March 4, 2010 by Charles
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Yesterday I threw in an old CD (CD? what is this, ‘05?) with some Relient K on it and remembered why I like them so much.

I had a discussion a couple of weeks ago with a classmate about Christian music. One of the things we talked about was the difference between groups that spoke explicitly about Jesus and clear religious themes in their music, and those who didn’t hide their faith, but used different subject matter. When it comes to popular music I prefer the latter (though there are obvious advantages to the former in worship).

Relient K was one of the examples that came up, because my classmate remembered their early stuff, saying there was a lot of explicit Christian imagery and subject matter. I didn’t listen to them until MMHMM, and it didn’t have that same flavor. That doesn’t stop them from having some great theology and understanding for real life:

“…And this life sentence that I’m serving
I admit that I’m every bit deserving.
But the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.” (“Be My Escape”)

“I am a hostage of my own humanity,
Self-detained and forced to live in this mess I’ve made.
And all I’m asking is for you to do what you can with me,
But I can’t ask you to give what you already gave.” (“Be My Escape”)

“And today I’ll trust you with the confidence of a many who’s never known defeat.
Then tomorrow upon hearing what I did, I will stare at you in disbelief.
Oh inconsistent me.
Crying out for consistency.” (“Let It All Out”)

Newest Project Launch: Irving Bible Church

Posted March 2, 2010 by Charles
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Sunday morning was the official launch of the new design of www.irvingbible.org. Outside of my work at DTS this is my first major project, and I’m excited to get it online!

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