husband to @SamanthaJLund pastor @ZionERChurch interested in @HermanWitsius đź“· https://xitter.gq/t.co/eaKXMggWA7
Garner, IA
Joined March 2007
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Brian J. Lund retweeted
I just gave a closed-book, pen-and-paper midterm exam in my 300-level course at UBC with 100 students. All exams were graded by an experienced graduate-level TA according to a rubric.
*** The average was 64/100.***
My class averages at UBC are usually 80-85.
Context:
• This was the first midterm, covering ONLY 4 weeks of material.
• Students had a list of possible questions in advance: no surprise questions.
• Questions included (a) 3 concept definitions, (b) 3 paragraph-long questions, and (c) a 1.5-page essay.
• I have taught this class multiple times. Nothing in my teaching style changed this semester.
• We read entire paragraphs of text in class, so students don't have to do something on their own that wasn't covered during the lecture.
• Students take a 10-question multiple-choice quiz at the end of every class (30% of the final grade).
• Attendance is 95-99% every class. Attention during lectures and participation in pair-work activities are very high → anticipating the end-of-class quiz.
*** But unfortunately, I suspect many students are not reading the material on the syllabus. They are asking LLMs to summarize it instead.***
After the midterm, students reported:
• They thought they knew concept definitions but couldn't produce them on paper.
• They thought they understood the arguments but struggled to connect them or identify points of agreement and disagreement.
My view:
It might be “cool” or “innovative” to teach students to summarize readings with ChatGPT or write essays with Claude. But we may be doing them a disservice: reducing their ability to retain material, think creatively, and reason from what they know. If you only read what AI has summarized for you, you don’t truly "know" the material.
Moving forward:
We have a second midterm coming up. I don't know how to convey to students that the best way to do better on the exam is to rely on and improve their own reading skills.
Ezra Klein: "Having AI summarize a book or paper for me is a disaster.
It has no idea what I really wanted to know and wouldn't have made the connections I would've made. I'm interested in the thing I will see that other people wouldn't have seen, and I think AI typically sees what everybody else would see.
I'm not saying that AI can't be useful, but I'm pretty against shortcuts.
And obviously, you have to limit the amount of work you're doing. You can't read literally everything. But in some ways, I think it's more dangerous to think you've read something that you haven't than to not read it at all.
I think the time you spend with things is pretty important."
@ezraklein
Brian J. Lund retweeted
Seriously? How about not doing things like: pretending that the affordability issue is a "hoax”; pretending that the Epstein issue is a "Democrat hoax" when MAGA influencers are the ones who pushed it for years; bullying an ally to get its territory; insulting our allies' war dead; the endless narcissism (sticking his own name on public buildings, implying that the reason it was bad that a woman died is because her parents voted for him, etc.); badmouthing a man who has just been murdered by his own son; pledging to raise housing prices, and on and on – to name only the most recent lunacies?
Too many MAGA people rationalize or at least minimize this sort of behavior, but to everyone else it seems absolutely demented, and people who refuse to acknowledge this obvious fact seem cultish and cut off from reality. That is the kind of thing that is turning swing voters off.
Brian J. Lund retweeted
I scrolled my top ten sources for people furious about various left wing 2020/21 cultural absurdities, particularly as it pertains to gender, life, and other traditional conservative values issues … those loudest about being principled and angriest about evangelicals who were silent in that moment requiring cultural courage. I scrolled them and went back as far and deep as I could to see their boldness now in the face of HHS sanctioned support of Planned Parenthood, and the barrage of predictable RFK moves against traditional values re: life and marriage etc (many other places of compromise and capitulation besides HHS). You know how many incidents I found of “courage” and “people calling out” such things?
Zero.
I found zero.
We live in a day and age of tribalistic cowardice.
If I ran this same test around economic principles most of the culture war zealots of 2020 would actually be SUPPORTING the state-sanctioned moves to central planning of the last year.
I will be clear as can be: those who were quiet and cowardly in 2020/21 deserved scorn - it was a despicable assault on our values.
Those silent (or even cheerleading) now, also deserve scorn - not just for the same cowardice they once accused others of, but for rank hypocrisy.
The future belongs to the truth-tellers.
Brian J. Lund retweeted
Sin narrows our vision and shrinks our imagination so that we settle for lesser loves, smaller hopes, and short-term relief instead of the life God intends. When sin takes hold, we lose sight of who God is and what is truly possible by His grace. The gospel restores our imagination by reopening our eyes to beauty, goodness, truth, and a future shaped not by our failures, but by Christ’s redemptive work.
Brian J. Lund retweeted
Calvin's style is to take a scriptural tension and crank it up to 11 so you can never again fail to notice it.
Athanasius' style is to dwell down on a revealed image and draw out its implications so you can never again rush past them.
Brian J. Lund retweeted
Three Baxterians are in a room arguing with each other. The first says “I am the only Baxterian.” The second says, “Two of us are Baxterians, but the other one requires nuance and distinction to affirm.” The third says, “All three of us are Baxterians, but the others are confused by different language and do not understand each other.” They are all Richard Baxter.
Brian J. Lund retweeted
Reading list for those interested in learning Scholastic Philosophy/Theology:
Franco Burgersdijk: Logic
Henri Grenier: Thomistic Philosophy
Allan Wolter: Philosophical Theology Scotus
Franciscus Junius: True Theology
William Ames: Marrow of Theology
Bernard Wuellner: Dictionary
Brian J. Lund retweeted
“We [assumed] if we surrendered the confession, we could keep the creed;
then, if we surrendered the creed, we could keep a few fundamentals.
At the end of the line arrives a generation that does not even know enough of its legacy to be aware when it is straying.”
- Michael Horton
Brian J. Lund retweeted
On 25 December, T.A. 3018: at dusk, the Fellowship of the Ring sets out from Rivendell on the quest to destroy the Ring. The date of 25th December was chosen deliberately by Tolkien. Artwork: "Moria Gate" by Anna Lee
Brian J. Lund retweeted
Merry Christmas! Christ is born to save!
Christmas Eve - 5:30 Prelude/6pm Program
Christmas Day - 9:00 a.m. Worship & Holy Communion
Brian J. Lund retweeted
Everything is not about you Mr. President. Especially not a tragedy when two people were senselessly murdered and a member of their own family is alleged to have killed them. Despite their unimaginable pain, you have to use it as an opportunity to put your grievances about their politcal views at the center of this awful event. Completely shocking and not the least bit surprising at the very same time.
Brian J. Lund retweeted
This is a really disgusting comment, and beneath even the rhetoric we have come to expect from President Trump. The murder of human beings is no occasion for narcissism.
Brian J. Lund retweeted
A Christian is defined by newness.
New heart (Ezek 36:26)
New birth (John 3:3)
New creature (2 Cor 5:17)
New life (Rom 6:4)
New desires (Gal 5:24)
New family (Mark 3:35)
New foes (Luke 21:17)
New service (Rom 7:6)
New struggle (Gal 5:17)
New name (Rev 2:17)
New hope (2 Pet 3:13)
Brian J. Lund retweeted
On this day in 1590, the great and legendary Girolamo Zanchi passed into glory.
Brian J. Lund retweeted
John Brown (Wamphray), orthodox, and anti-antinomian, gives a warning:
It tendeth too much to blow up proud self, to say, That if works of obedience be not the condition of our first justification, yet they may be called the condition of our second justification, or of the continuance of our justification... so to assert our works to be the condition thereof, is to crosse the argueings of the Apostle, & manifestly to lay a foundation of glorying for Man...
Brian J. Lund retweeted
It’s almost comical to hear @McCormickProf — whose entire scholarly vocation has been dismantling Rawlsian orthodoxy — dismissed as a relic of the “post-war consensus.” If that is how he is interpreted, then let me suggest that his most famous work, Making Men Moral, is considered a Thomistically-inspired frontal assault on liberalism's central axis, which grounds civil liberties in rights rather than substantive goods. As I’ve heard others say, please do the reading.
You can disagree with Robby's decision to resign from Heritage’s Board, and you can even disagree with his friendship with Cornel West. What is unreasonable is to disparage him. He’s arguably the most significant social conservative thinker of his generation (I edited an entire book on his scholarly work and the influence he’s had on rising scholars, judges, and elected officials—to say nothing of the campaign he’s waging to fix higher-ed). His signal influence is a combination of intellectual brilliance, kindness, and coalition-building.
The inability to render such respect amid disagreement—even strong disagreement—is why the “conservative” movement now criticizing him is proving itself reactionary and ungrateful, neither of which is a hallmark of conservatism.