Wikipedia in the Classroom – Blasphemy or Blessing?

Reading
Mark Goodacre’s Blog about Wikipedia brought to mind the fact that our students have a tremendous opportunity to change the world with their writing . . . not just in writing classes. Never before have students been able to edit a tool that millions of people in the world are using as their first reference.

Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) has so many eyeballs (in many languages) because it returns very high on the Google search engine. There is a good chance that if I search for something specific in Google, the wikipedia entry will be in the top 10 returned sites. This becomes a cycle of success. The more people who click the link, the higher the link becomes. Wikipedia becomes a victor due to its own success.

Mr. Schantz gave me an article about Wikipedia, which pointed out the following statistics: Wikipedia had 164,675,000 unique visitors in December 2006, ranking sixth on the web and reflecting a 107% growth rate over last year. More than 75,000 wikipedians have edited 5 or more articles in the last month.

And that’s where we come in. Think of the benefits of having students do an assignment where they must create or edit a wikipedia entry. Anyone can do it. All it takes is a quick registration. Starting then, a student could contribute to an article about a person they researched for a class, a topic that you have talked about in class, or even something that you don’t have time to get to in class. Their name doesn’t appear in the article, but they can still submit proof that they modified and how they improved an article.

I know that teachers may feel like this is one more thing to have to learn and figure out. But Wikipedia (as seen earlier) is HUGE. And it’s not going away any time soon. The Fast Company article explained why wikipedia may be the new google. What better way to teach our students to understand information than to make them explain it to someone else.

Now, Wikipedia has taken some heat for being liberally slanted, and it may very well be. But that’s only because people with a liberal slant are the ones writing. If you prefer a conservative alternative, try conservapedia.com. It won’t have nearly the eyeballs of Google, but provides many of the same benefits.

• Writing for an academic audience teaches the students a different type of writing than first person, experience based prose that they are used to.

• Knowing that thousands of others may read an article should improve the student’s attention to quality in writing.

• Wikipedia has a shortage of thorough articles on religious and Biblical topics, giving students an opportunity to contribute something unique.

• Wikipedia requires articles to have citations from outside sources, thus teaching students the importance of using and properly attributing those sources.

It won’t work for every course or topic, but I can think of several off the top of my head from courses I have taught.

• In NT Survey, I required them to make a slide presentation of a place in the NT world. How about if they could have found and uploaded pictures and information from Bible dictionaries to the Wikipedia entry for a specific place?

• In Research & Writing, the students had to proofread for an assignment. What if they could have been signed up as Wikipedia proofreaders to catch the mistakes that show up there?

• In Cross-cultural communication, the students had to do a report on a different culture. What if they could have contributed to the Wikipedia entry and added information about communication challenges or tips when interacting with someone from that culture?

Do you have any ideas about using Wikipedia in a course you are teaching? Share them in the comments.

And one more idea: What do you think of Wikipedia as a forum for professors writing? While you may not be paid for doing it, isn’t there something both professionally and spiritually satisfying about contributing to the knowledge of someone who may check out Wikipedia first for information about a topic? Talk about extending your influence!

The Case for Teaching the Bible

I’m sitting here in my office, enjoying spring break, when
the following article comes across the computer.

I assume I don’t have to make the case for teaching the Bible in Bible college or even in church. However, the new article in Time Magazine is about teaching the Bible in public schools.

Apparently, “Bible as Literature” courses are making a comeback, which brings several questions to the mind of this dean.

1. How biblically literate are the teachers? Are these teachers with significant instruction in Bible, or just people who are teaching from a textbook?
2. Who will teach these courses? Does this give an opportunity for local preachers and youth ministers to be involved in a local school? I can imagine a preacher showing up to the school and volunteering to do such a thing (or perhaps even receiving a modest paycheck for doing so). But would having professional “clergy” as teachers undermine the sort of non-faith approach that appears to be essential to making this kosher? How about having a local church member / lay leader who has been to Bible college? Such an opportunity for either our transfer students into education programs, or even people who have graduated but gone on to secular careers might be an option.
3. How will this affect the Biblical knowledge of students in youth group? Already, youth ministers battle what the students have been taught on issues of creation/evolution, sex education, and alternative lifestyles. Is this a new area where youth ministers need to be equipped to possibly correct mistaken teachings by the public school?
4. Will such a thing encourage further study in Bible, perhaps at Bible college? Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I can visualize people getting a taste of God’s word in class in high school, if taught by a good instructor, and instilling a desire for more. That could be a very good thing.

Does anyone have any insight or experience on this matter to help clear up some of these questions in my mind?

David

Amazing Grace – The Movie

Using Mind of a Dean for movie reviews is only allowed when the movie has something to do with working at a Bible College. I promise there is a connection!

Sandy and I went out Friday, March 16, to see a movie. We had been wanting to see Amazing Grace, and we were not disappointed. You can read about the movie at www.amazinggracemovie.com. The story portrays William Wilberforce’s attempts to abolish the slave trade in England in the early 19th century. The movie is a moving and interesting telling of the tale, rated PG for some very mild British profanity and graphic depictions of slavery (check out a complete summary of the content here.)

The story of William Wilberforce has been well documented and doesn’t need to be repeated by me here. The easiest thing to talk about from a ministerial training perspective would be that Wilberforce planned to leave politics in his twenties to pursue the Lord’s work in his personal life, perhaps as a minister. Others convinced him that he could do the Lord’s work through politics, a thought-provoking concept in and of itself.

However, there are two other angles of the story that have captured the mind of this dean and won’t let me go. The movie does a good job showing the influence on Wilberforce of two individuals: John Newton (played by Albert Finney) and Thomas Clarkson (played by Rufus Sewell). Allow me to spend a few paragraphs discussing them in light of our work preparing ministers and educating students.

John Newton was the former slave ship captain who came to Christ in repentance for his sin. He wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace” and became the minister when Wilberforce was a child. The song stayed with Wilberforce even to adulthood, presumably because of the story told along with it by the minister, whose testimony from being with the slaves made an impression on young William. As an adult, Wilberforce had such respect for Newton that he went back to the church where the old man served and asked for help to make his important decisions. Application: In your students (future ministers, we hope!), do you see the potential for changing the world that lies within them to write songs and sermons capable of compelling their listeners to do great things? If not, how can you help develop them?

Thomas Clarkson was the leading opponent of slave trade who convinced Wilberforce to make this a key part of his own political agenda. (Wikipedia has a good summary here.) He was a preacher’s son who went to St. John’s College of Cambridge. After gaining his B.A., he continued in pursuit of ministerial training to become a priest in the Anglican church. Before he could finish, something changed his life and he devoted himself to the abolition of slave trade. From the Wikipedia article:

“It was while he was in Cambridge, in 1785, that he entered a Latin essay competition which was to set him on the course that he would take for most of the rest of his life. The topic of the essay was “Is it lawful to enslave the unconsenting?” and it led Clarkson to consider the question of the slave trade, reading everything he could on the subject, including the works of Anthony Benezet. He was appalled and challenged by what he discovered – and it changed his life. He also researched the topic by meeting and interviewing those who had personal experience of the slave trade and slavery.

After winning the prize, Clarkson experienced what he called a spiritual revelation from God as he travelled on horseback between Cambridge and London, having broken his journey at Wadesmill, near Ware, Hertfordshire: ‘A thought came into my mind’, he wrote, ‘that if the contents of the Essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end’ (Clarkson, History, vol. 1). It was this experience that ‘ordered’ him to devote his life to abolishing the trade.

Having translated the essay into English so that it could gain a wider audience, Clarkson published it in 1786 as “An essay on the slavery and commerce of the human species, particularly the African, translated from a Latin Dissertation,” which was honoured with the first prize in the University of Cambridge, for the year 1785.”

My mind perks up: An essay designed to provide practice in Latin and writing skills, researched by a college student, changed the course of history, and saved the lives of millions. How many essays do we even require our students to write any more? Is it because they can’t write them or we don’t want to read them? Application: Do I have any assignments with potential to change a student’s direction and affect millions of lives? If not, how can I develop assignments like that?

Bible College faculty members can’t be sure which assignments will change students who will change the world. But knowing both are possible should shape the way we look at our assignments and our students.

Spiritual Sustenance

One of the things that faculty members at Bible Colleges have said that they want their dean to be is a shepherd of the faculty.  What a challenge this brings to a person of my age and relative immaturity, compared to those around me.

In order to make up for my deficiencies in this area, I have intentionally tried to be exposed to multiple quality ministries.  I usually listen to a sermon every morning that is downloaded from one of these places.  It is amazing how helpful that is for feeding my soul so that I can be more prepared to feed others.

Following preachers that I make sure to listen to are:
Chuck Sackett, an LCS professor who also preaches at Madison Park Christian Church, one of our largest supporting churches
Dave Stone and Kyle Idleman, co-preachers at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY
Barry McCarty, preacher at Valley View Christian Church in Dallas and regular speaker on The Christians Hour
Ravi Zacharias, of Let My People Think, a wonderful apologist and speaker
Various chapel speakers at Ozark Christian College and Lincoln Christian College and Seminary.

And then there’s Charles Swindoll. I listened to Charles Swindoll through high school, and he had a great influence on my desire to be a preacher and a Bible student. I don’t listen to his Insight for Living broadcasts any more, because there are just too many of them a week and they are aimed at a general audience. But Swindoll also serves as Chancellor at Dallas Theological Seminary, and when he preaches in their chapel, I always download and listen to it. (http://www.dts.edu/media/podcasts/) His sermons perfectly target those in ministry training and the professors who train them. The last sermon he preached there was on March 2 and was about integrity from the life of Daniel.

The following notes come from his conclusion and I think are relevant to all of us who are trying to display lives of integrity to our students:
Note well the Rewards of Authentic Integrity
1. Sustained cultivation of character
2. Continued relief of a clear conscience
3. Personal delight of intimacy with God.
4. Priceless inheritance of a lingering legacy.
5. Rare privilege of being a mentor.
6. The crowning reward of finishing well.

Read them again and think of how valuable these things are to our students and our family. Not everyone in the church gets to do what we do. With that opportunity comes the responsibility to be people of integrity so that we can train students of integrity. My personal favorite in the College context is #5. Thinking that people are watching me and looking at what I have to offer is humbling. Swindoll says of people who are mentors that when you spend time with them, you find “they have far more behind the counter than they ever put in the display case for everyone to see.” And that challenges me to make sure that there is more “behind the counter.”

And then he listed Seven Subtle Siphons of Integrity
1. Words without actions
2. Busyness without purpose
3. Calendars without Sabbath
4. Relationships without nourishment
5. Personality without accountability
6. Giftedness without humility
7. Biblical theology without personal integrity

Those all hit me right between the eyes. I need to make sure I am protecting my integrity, and that means not being out of balance in any of the areas listed above. The biggest one for me was #1. How many times do I tell people something but not follow through on it? That subtly siphons away my integrity.

How about you? Which of the earlier list is your most precious reward for living a life of integrity? And which one on the bottom list challenges you most as a teacher? If you don’t feel like posting publicly, you can e-mail me privately and I will read and respond to you individually.

If you want to listen to the entire sermon, you can find it at this link: http://boss.streamos.com/download/dts/feeds/chapel/mp3/20070302.mp3

Does Scholarship Undermine Faith?

Jamie Franke is the guest blogger of the day! He sent the following and asked me to comment. I found it very thought provoking. Thanks to Jamie for drawing my attention to this issue.

There is an interesting article in Mar/Apr 2007 BAR (pgs. 50-57) that seeks to examine how scholarship affects scholars. Hershel Shanks interviews four scholars–two lost their faith and two have not. (At least this is how the article portrays it. Actually, in my opinion none of the four interviewed really believe much of anything. None of them hold to the inerrancy of the Scripture, for example.).

What is especially interesting is that two of them began life as very conservative Christians (holding the inerrancy of the Bible, etc.), and then lost their faith because of their scholarship. In the printed interview, they tell their story.

It seems to me that such an article is helpful for teachers in a conservative Bible college setting for a number of reasons:

1) It shows the danger of liberal critical scholarship. It seems to me that teachers in a Bible college setting must constantly warn of such danger. An article like this causes me to ask, how are we preparing students at CCCB so that their faith will not be destroyed when challenged by attacks of liberal scholarship?

2) It shows the problem with accepting existential philosophy. The Baptist minister in the interview appears to have drunk deeply of this philosophy (and he is the most conservative of the four interviewed!).

3) It shows the need to emphasize the foundations of Christianity and to clearly communicate them. It also shows the need for discussing matters relating to philosophy of religion–particularly in dealing with the problem of evil. One of the individuals lost his faith because he could not deal rightly with issues of theodicy. In my opinion we must clearly and accurately deal with these things.

4) It helps us understand where others (whom we usually refer to as the “liberals”) are coming from. I think this is important. If teachers are going to talk about the positions of others in class, in my opinion we need to be able to accurately state their positions. We do not like it when others refer to us as “baptismal regenerationists” because it does not fairly describe our position relating to baptism. Neither should we be guilty of unfairly describing positions of liberals.

5) It reminds us that scholarship must be subservient to Christ.

Perhaps you would like to take a look at this article and comment in MOAD.

Jamie Franke
—–
MOAD responds:

Jamie,
I read the part of the article available online and found your comments to be very insightful and accurate. I struggled with this issue when attending the University of Missouri a few years ago. I remember talking to Mr. Pelfrey about the issue of having my faith undermined with doctoral studies. His point was something like this: “At least when you attend a state university you are more aware of the attacks than if you attend a seminary where you weren’t expecting your faith to be undermined.”

I remember well, sitting in the library at Lincoln Christian Seminary, studying for a paper I was writing on Revelation. The realization finally hit me, “There’s no way I can study for a Ph.D in New Testament. I’m not willing to interact with the material necessary in order to earn it.” It’s not that Lincoln was undermining my faith, but the research I had to do there showed me that there was a whole body of “scholarship” that would force me to interact with thoughts that had the potential to undermine the commitments I already had.

Could I have handled it? Probably, but I was aware of the danger nevertheless. I’m wondering if these scholars were properly warned before they pursued their studies of what would be faced. For instance, I know that Bart Ehrman attended Moody Bible Institute. I’m sure he was given a strong foundation for his faith there. But I remember hearing a fellow student of his at Moody once commenting that the difference between Ehrman and himself (wish I could remember his name, but he had remained a faithful, conservative Bible writer and teacher) was that Ehrman was always cynical. Perhaps it’s a personality trait? People who have a tendency to be cynical and pessimistic are more in danger of being toppled from their faith if they are exposed to more critical scholarship than is healthy.

If that’s the case, then knowing your own limitations (and predilections) would be a good way to prevent “truth decay.” If I know where I am vulnerable, then I must avoid those pitfalls, even though it meant studying communication instead of New Testament at the doctoral level.

MOAD

Book Review: The 7 Churches Not in the Book of Revelation

From Gene Mims, president of Lifeway Resources, comes this small but insightful book helping ministers understand the kinds of churches that they may serve in. Attempting to be light-hearted in places (perhaps to hide the pain that may come when these issues have ended ministries and damaged churches), Mims explains seven kinds of churches (iconified by the pictures on the cover from left to right).

In the university church, the preacher serves as professor, and teaching, doctrine, and instruction are emphasized.
In the arena church, the preacher serves as performer, and the experience of the assembly is emphasized.
In the corporate church, the preacher serves as CEO, and the efficient control of the operation is emphasized.
In the machine church, the preacher serves as manager, and multiple programs and activities are emphasized.
In the family church, the preacher serves as chaplain, and relationships within the members are emphasized.
In the legacy church, the preacher serves as curator, and the accomplishments of the past are emphasized.
In the community center church, the preacher serves as prophet, and issues of the neighborhood are emphasized.

As you might guess, every church can have multiple characteristics, but a dominant identity will normally be evident. The power of the book is the attempt to help ministers see that it is difficult to change the identity of the church they are in and that once employed, they must do their best to serve the local congregation in the model that the church’s identity requires. The other choice is simply to leave. The second power of the book is to help ministers ask the right questions when interviewing in order to determine whether it is a good fit or not.

The book has some limitations. It is far shorter (100 pages) than what could be devoted to the topic. In many instances, it feels like the author just begins to open a door, and then shuts the door and moves on to the next door. Diagnostic tests, longer case studies, interviews with ministers, and reference to other research would have helped lengthen and improve the text.

Another limitation is the tone of the book, which is very informal. This reads like a sermon or a lecture given in the seminary classroom (which is the material’s origin). A scholarly, analytical treatment of the topic this is not.

Influencing the Mind of a Dean: Apart from deciding which of the seven kinds of church is best (he argues that the corporate is probably the best balanced model), I find great value in this book for students graduating from Bible College, looking for a church to serve. My own experience in ministry, limited as it is, resonates with the assertions of this book. As I approach a church, I too often overestimated the value of my own priorities in shaping the church’s identity and underestimated the power of the church’s identity to determine how to best serve there. Anything we can do to help our students find a better match between their places of service and their own priorities will serve to improve their ministry experience and our reputation of preparing leaders for the church.

Click here to buy the book from Christianbook.com

The Plagiarists

The past two days have brought to MOAD (mind of a dean) two separate but similar situations. First, I found out about a faculty member wrestling with how to address two students who claimed they didn’t plagiarize one another, while the evidence was to the contrary. Portions of the two papers were identical in spelling and punctuation. Part of one student’s paper was directly identical to information on Amazon.com. The same paper had internal inconsistencies between the quality of the uncopied parts (poor) and the quality of the copied parts (passable). The conclusion the professor and I came to was that plagiarism must have taken place, even though they both deny it and several students came to the defense of the integrity of the accused plagiarist(s).

Then, I received in my e-mail a request from a student of mine from 10 years ago. He is teaching as an adjunct for Indiana University and has the opportunity to teach New Testament Survey. Within the message, he requested that I share my notes and powerpoints from when I taught him in the class. I was glad to do so. Then I read the syllabus which he attached to his message. To my surprise (honor?), I found almost day by day agreement in what this student was teaching for the course and what I taught in my class. Between the assignments, the topics, and even the point values, the course is indistinguishable in its organization. At first I was offended, then I felt rewarded that he had been honest enough to send me the syllabus and let me see for myself the similarities.

For the record, I’m happy that what I provided before has proven useful for him, and have no objection to the material being shared elsewhere. We regularly share syllabi with other professors in the institution, so I’m not troubled that an alumnus would see value in using our organizational strategies or outline of content. But it did bring to my mind the ongoing issue of plagiarism in a Christian context. The two students in the first example are roommates, trying to live in community with each other. They share thoughts about issues regularly, pray together, and hold each other accountable. We want our students to be participants in the learning community, which may include utilizing the learning here and “repurposing” it.

The question for today is, When does repurposing material become plagiarism? When they preach our material? When they write articles? When they write papers for graduate school? When they teach a lesson in church? How about at another college? Where should we draw the line? Where would you draw the line? Or where have you come close to the line in your own usage of other material?

Talk back to me by leaving a reply below. I look forward to your response.