As a professor who researches the role of artificial intelligence in education, I’ve spent the past few years asking hard questions about how AI will shape teaching and learning. Will students learn less if they rely too heavily on generative tools like ChatGPT or Claude? How do we maintain academic integrity without becoming surveillance officers…

Not all value can be measured in dollars. Consider a cautionary tale shared by Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel. While he was studying as an Oxford Rhodes Scholar in the 1970s, one of the all-women’s colleges, St. Anne’s, became tangled in a debate over evolving sexual mores. Resident halls for men and women had traditionally been…

In 1526, William Tyndale’s ground-breaking translation of the English New Testament appeared. In this translation, Tyndale used a unique phrase that was not in John Wycliffe’s original English translation. Instead of translating a key passage from Paul’s sermon to the Athenians in Wycliffe’s original way, “ made of one all the kind of men” (Acts…

I’d like to propose a thought experiment -- one that may transform your understanding of something you see every day. Thought experiments can change the world, or at least your understanding of it. Einstein’s great scientific breakthroughs started with a thought experiment, something like this one. For our experiment, imagine how a mirror works. If…

I was nearly a failure at my greatest dream. Since the age of five (not an exaggeration, and you can verify with my sister), I dreamed of becoming a teacher. I played school pretty much non-stop from as far back as I can remember, and the dream never changed. It was fed and encouraged by…

This summer I will take on the responsibility of chair of the Department of Computer Science at Calvin University. This part-time administrative role comes with many responsibilities: guiding the hiring and reappointment of faculty, scheduling classes, ensuring academic quality, managing budgets, and generally keeping the “trains running on time” in the department. To be sure,…

The tired but persistent cultural narrative of the conflict between science and religion continues to impede fruitful discussions by obscuring the meaningful and important role that religious identity plays in the lives of scientists and researchers. The conflict narrative is particularly problematic as faculty and mentors seek to prepare interested Christian undergraduates to attend graduate…

Teaching as Ministry In part one of this two-part series, I identified the need for this cultural and educational moment to step into our students’ world as we help them know and be known. In the following post, I will focus on constructing a framework to help us achieve such a lofty and timely goal.…

We live in an age where information is instantly accessible, with near-limitless knowledge available at our fingertips. At no point in history has so much information been within immediate reach. This unprecedented access has sparked important conversations about the relevance of traditional educational structures—and even the role of higher education itself. In 2022, Inside Higher…

A couple of years ago, my son-in-law showed me ChatGPT on his phone. I had heard of it before, but didn’t know what it could do. It seemed pretty cool, and he was able to have it answer some questions and then even use it to write a short sermon that was somewhat suitable for…