Book Review: "Teach Like a Human" with Dr. Dave Mulder

How do Christian educators approach Generative AI with caution? How can educators find the balance between using GAI as a tool and having it take over their teaching? In this episode, Rob and Jared chat with Dr. Dave Mulder about his new book Teach Like a Human.

View a transcript of this week's episode.

 

Resources

• Teach Like a Human: Playful Practice and Serious Faith in the Age of AI – Dave Mulder
• Interpreting Your World: Five Lenses for Engaging Theology and Culture – Justin Bailey
• FOCUS Blog - Cedarville University CTL

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• Contact us at [e-mail] with any questions

What is Transform Your Teaching?

The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.

Dave Mulder: 00:03

What are we gonna ask the AI assistant to do for us? Let's keep humans doing the human work. And humans are always gonna use tools. We have always used tools. That's part of the story of humanity.

Dave Mulder: 00:14

So it's not that you don't use tools. It's choosing the right tool for the right work.

Narrator: 00:19

This is the Transform Your Teaching podcast. The Transform Your Teaching podcast is

Ryan: 00:31

Hello, and welcome to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. In today's episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles chat with one of our favorite guests, Dr. Dave Mulder.

Ryan: 00:40

Dr. Mulder serves as professor of education at Dort University, and recently released a book called Teach Like a Playful Practice and Serious Faith in the Age of AI. Today, Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles get a chance to chat with him about that book.

Ryan: 00:56

Thanks for joining us.

Jared: 00:57

Rob, we're here with our friend, doctor Dave Mulder over in Dort University in the middle of a cornfield in Iowa. We wanna have our good friend Dave Mulder on to talk about his new book, teach like a human. So Yeah. Doctor Dave Mulder at Dort University. Welcome back to the podcast for the six millionth time.

Rob: 01:16

Yeah. We we felt like it was time. Yeah. We felt like it was time to have another corn to corn podcast.

Dave Mulder: 01:23

Hey. I like it. Yep.

Jared: 01:26

But welcome back, my friend.

Dave Mulder: 01:28

It's so good to be here, friends. I I really appreciate you having me.

Rob: 01:31

I really appreciate what you've done with this book. I think the gap where you're writing is one in which has been somewhat quiet in the literature, especially in popular literature. I think I know what inspired you to write it, but would you just take a moment, let us know, let our listeners know why did you feel like this was the time to write this?

Dave Mulder: 01:54

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you asking the question, Rob. This is a passion project for me in a lot of ways because this is a topic that I think a lot about as an educational technologist. You know, this the question of what does it mean to be a human being.

Dave Mulder: 02:08

And in particular, I think our current moment where there are a lot of well, there's a lot of narratives, around what is AI and what is AI doing and what does it mean to interact with machines that that seem very human like in in some ways. And I I really wanna, give an opportunity to push back against some of that language. Also, Jared knows this too. I I am no technophobe. Right?

Dave Mulder: 02:33

I'm I'm a technophile, but I like to think of myself as an EdTech skeptic. A technophilic EdTech skeptic. Let's let's maybe say it that way. Like, I term. I I

Rob: 02:42

feel like we need to just pause and define that for our listeners.

Jared: 02:45

They're gonna on your LinkedIn, Dave.

Dave Mulder: 02:47

I'll go there. I'll go there. So so I I do love technology. Right? I I've always been on the early adopter side of new technologies.

Dave Mulder: 02:55

But the promises that a lot of tech companies make simply don't bear out in in the real world. A lot of times. A lot of times. And so because of that, I find myself feeling kinda skeptical when I when I read bold claims. I think bold claims deserve bold evidence to support them.

Dave Mulder: 03:09

And I am just I remain unconvinced about the all positive rosy picture of of this AI future that some companies are are proposing. And so I want us to come at this from a humbly, respectfully, but skeptical approach and to really raise that question, what does it mean to be a human being in the age of AI? And so that was a big part of what drove me to actually write the book. Put ideas down on the page and in pixels, as they say.

Jared: 03:36

So you mentioned also in the book that emerging technologies, is a course that you are, teaching. What role did that course have in kind of starting this project? Were student questions, student responses, or maybe just from your own planning?

Dave Mulder: 03:52

Yeah. Definitely. So I this is a course I get to teach at the master's level, and I teach it every other summer. So this is the interesting part. Right?

Dave Mulder: 04:00

I think back a couple years ago, when I taught the class in 2021, AI was still kind of over the horizon. I one of the things we do in the course, we read the horizon report. I don't know if listeners are familiar with that, but it's it's a every year boy, going back, close to twenty years now, I bet, there there's been a report that's released. And they're trying to read the tea leaves. What's just over the horizon when it comes to educational technologies?

Dave Mulder: 04:24

Well, artificial intelligence has been on the horizon report practically since the beginning. And so even in 2021, when I was teaching the course, and I had students who were very tech savvy and are very interested, and there were questions kind of at that time, like, well, what's the reality of this AI stuff? But we were talking a lot more about virtual reality, augmented reality, like those those kinds of questions.

Jared: 04:46

Oh, yeah. Remember those conversations. Discussion about AR? Like, just two years

Dave Mulder: 04:50

ago? Mhmm.

Jared: 04:51

Yeah. Insane. Now no one ever talks about that anymore.

Dave Mulder: 04:54

Well, it's You were right.

Rob: 04:55

It's very much there, though. Augmented reality is already it's already disappeared to some degree.

Jared: 05:01

Like,

Rob: 05:02

you go to Amazon

Jared: 05:03

Oh, yeah.

Rob: 05:03

And you you're looking for something. Now it's almost standard when you look at the detail pics Yeah. Of the product. They always have something that's like, picture this in your location.

Dave Mulder: 05:14

Yeah.

Rob: 05:14

Right. Like picture this in

Jared: 05:15

your room or whatever. Right. Anyway, sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt.

Dave Mulder: 05:18

But No. Not at all. To that point, though. Right? How quickly things move from this emerging technology into accepted technology.

Dave Mulder: 05:25

And so, yeah, by 2023, the next time I taught the course, well, ChadGPT's burst on the scene, feels like very upset the apple cart, and suddenly everyone's got questions. What's this doing? And, I mean, I've been thinking about AI for some time, you know, because I get to teach this course. But that really prompted me to say, like, I need to do better. I need to educate myself on both the promise and the pitfalls of of what this new technology is and how it could unfold.

Dave Mulder: 05:51

And I did have students asking really good questions. Of course, I mean, that summer twenty three, a substantial part of the course ended up being about artificial intelligence because it was very hot topic. And so that prompted me to start doing some research, and I got a chapter published in a a book by ACSI, the Association for Christian Schools International. Mhmm. They had a leading insights volume, that came out in 2324, that was all about AI for Christian educators.

Dave Mulder: 06:16

And, because I wrote that chapter, I was asked to speak at one of their conferences, to kind of flesh out my thinking. And talking with a few folks at ACSI, they were really the ones who really encouraged me. My friend Edward Bunn, at ACSI in particular was like, gotta write this as a book because Christian educators need this. They just need the equipping, both theological but also practically. How how are we gonna teach in the age of AI?

Dave Mulder: 06:39

And that's what I hope the the book does. The subtitle I put on it is playful practice and serious faith in the age of AI, and I hope it achieves both of those that we can think playfully about what our teaching practices can and should look like. Also But, that we're gonna take our faith really seriously as we're grappling with this, question, what does it mean to be human in the age of AI?

Jared: 06:58

Let's talk about the book a little bit. You have a term you use called Christian imagination, and you write that educators should cultivate a Christian imagination for its technology. Tell us how you define that, and what does it look like in practice for a teacher who is teaching the age of AI?

Dave Mulder: 07:16

Sure. So credit where credit's due, I'm in a writing group with a couple of my colleagues here at DORT. And one of my colleagues in the theology department, and he's also our dean of chapel, is my friend, doctor Justin Bailey. And he's been thinking and writing quite a bit about Christian imagination and hanging out with Justin. You could do worse than hanging out with Justin Bailey.

Dave Mulder: 07:32

Let's just say that. And he really has encouraged me and our whole writing group to take the work of imagination very seriously because we sometimes think of imagination as something kids do. It's like just pretend or make believe or or something like that. And his argument is this is actually how we engage with the world. We have an imagination for what's going on in the world around us.

Dave Mulder: 07:53

And I would really recommend to you his book, Interpreting Your World, which is really a book all about Christian imagination and how Christians can and should engage with culture. He has a new book coming out soon. So if you just Google Justin Bailey, the title's something he's read several chapters of it to us at our at our writing group. So healing the diseased imagination, I think, is the the title for it. So the sense that our imaginations too are absolutely infected by sin, and we need to grapple with that reality.

Dave Mulder: 08:20

K? So when I say Christian imagination, that's really what I'm thinking about. Like, we picture the world in certain ways. And when it comes to something like AI, I think pop culture has really saturated our imaginations. Right?

Dave Mulder: 08:32

I'm I'm a child of the eighties, came of age in the nineties. You think about all the media that was created in the seventies, eighties, and nineties where robots were a part of the story or artificial intelligence in some way, shape, form. I'm thinking even way back to 2001, A Space Odyssey. Right? You've got HAL 9,000, this evil AI.

Dave Mulder: 08:49

I can't do that, Dave. Right? Like, it's very on satellite when you like, ugh. Right? And then you think about all of the films and and TV shows.

Dave Mulder: 08:59

Right? You've got Data, lieutenant Data on Star Trek, the next generation. Right? He's this artificially intelligent humanoid robot, and he's grappling with his world, and we come to kinda humanize this this machine as a result. Or you think about the matrix films, right, where you've got living inside the machine, and it's kind of this blend of how are human beings interacting with these evil, you know, machine intelligences.

Dave Mulder: 09:24

And, like, there's so many of those kinds of stories. And I think that that does get into our our imagination. We we kind of picture whether you think AI is gonna be the saving grace of the human race or you think it's gonna be the end of the world as we know it, hit the terminator. Right? Pick pick your poison here.

Dave Mulder: 09:39

How many of these evil AI stories we have? And so I think we need a better imagination, I guess, is is my argument for this when we're thinking about Christian educators and how do we how do we engage with AI. If our whole imagination is saturated by pop culture stories, I think we've got better alternatives to to heal that diseased imagination. How

Rob: 09:59

does imagination, from your perspective, link up with or analogous to what has been popular in terms of philosophical views as a worldview, a holistic worldview? Is it a part of that? Is it just a a reframing of worldview, or can you give me

Dave Mulder: 10:19

a

Rob: 10:20

little bit of insight there?

Dave Mulder: 10:21

So I I would take it to be these are different ways of using language to describe the same kinds of things. Right? Oftentimes, I think, worldview comes to be viewed as something that's kinda static. This is just the lens that I see the world through, and so this is my worldview. And I think if we reframe that as imagination, maybe we could think of it as world viewing.

Dave Mulder: 10:42

It makes it something that's a little bit more active, as a way of engaging with the world. So it's not just like, now I have all the right ideas. I see the world clearly through my worldview, but it's more kind of an organic like, as I try to live out my discipleship in this world, I'm gonna encounter new things, and I need to have an imagination for how do I grapple with these things. Hopefully, yes, I do have a holistic worldview, and I do think of it that way. I do talk about it with with my undergrad students, especially that way.

Dave Mulder: 11:08

Like, I I see the world through a particular lens. I do. I I have a worldview. But this this reframing to get us thinking about imagination makes it, I think, more active, than just a static thing.

Rob: 11:20

Okay. That's helpful because I think some of our listeners may not, when you use the word imagination, they may not immediately go directly to what I think you're trying to say.

Dave Mulder: 11:34

Yeah. Yeah.

Rob: 11:34

And and I I appreciate that. I think that's very helpful because I know when I was leaving the scene, so to speak, in the college world, worldview was really starting to gain, you know, saturation in the literature as well as in the Christian culture.

Dave Mulder: 11:54

Yes. Yes.

Rob: 11:55

And so now it's kind of I don't know where it went. You know, it kinda disappeared somewhere, and now it sounds like it's trying to reemerge or we're trying to have these conversations about how we view the world and imagination being one of those things.

Jared: 12:13

Let me ask you, you know, you mentioned how we as Christians should handle AI, especially in a saturated culture that we live in right now. A lot of educators are feeling a bit of a I know based on the conversations I've had with some of our faculty on campus because we're pushing a GPTEDU engagement. Engagement.

Rob: 12:37

Yeah, we want them to engage with it.

Jared: 12:39

Yeah, want them to engage with it. We want them to, you know, initiate conversation and everything else. But a lot of them feel a sense of enthusiasm, but also a sense of tension or anxiety about it.

Dave Mulder: 12:51

Oh, yes.

Jared: 12:52

As you can probably imagine. No pun intended. But

Dave Mulder: 12:56

Hey. Hey.

Rob: 12:58

I didn't even have to prompt you

Jared: 12:59

for that. Yeah. That was that was a good one. That was I came up with that one on my own. How do you think Christians should navigate that tension?

Jared: 13:08

Because a lot of people are saying, 100%, let's do it. Then you have the other end, they're saying it's the antichrist, and we should not associate with it whatsoever.

Dave Mulder: 13:16

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll maybe tell a short story. I'll do a short story to help illustrate this.

Dave Mulder: 13:21

So when I think back to the early days of the rise of the world wide web, as as I as you might say. Right? So if we're thinking late nineties, early two thousands, I have a vivid memory of the first time I was on the world wide web. And I I could tell you that story. That's not the point of this one.

Dave Mulder: 13:38

I think there are people today who will have a vivid memory of the first time they typed something into that prompt box on ChatGPT. Right? I think we could make an analogy. It's not the same, but I think there's something similar. And I think back to around the early two thousands, I had a very clear memory of a hallway conversation with a couple of my colleagues at the Christian school I was teaching at at that time.

Dave Mulder: 13:57

And the conversation was basically, what are we gonna do about this worldwide web? What are we gonna do about this worldwide web? And it's, like, 2,003. Right? Okay?

Dave Mulder: 14:05

And 2003. The conversation around this like, there were some people in the circle who were saying, well, we have to ban it. Like, we have to ban it. We can't have the kids. They're just gonna cheat.

Dave Mulder: 14:13

We have access worldwide.

Rob: 14:14

Right? The kids are gonna cheat. Right. There it is.

Dave Mulder: 14:17

And and and my response at that time, I'm still a pretty young teacher, and I'm looking around the circle saying there's no way a ban is gonna work. Like, you cannot you cannot ban your way out of this. Right? But it okay. On the other hand, there were people in that circle who were saying, well, this thing exists in the world, and the kids are gonna use We better throw the doors open and fully embrace it.

Dave Mulder: 14:35

100%. And I'm also looking at that saying, I don't know that that's the right answer either. Right? So those kinda feel like two poles, and I think there are teachers, educators today who are kinda on that contume. I'd like to add a third corner.

Dave Mulder: 14:47

Let's make it a triangle. The third corner, around the circle that we were talking here, would be the I just don't wanna think about this. I don't wanna engage with this. How worried should I be? Can I just hide my head in the sand?

Dave Mulder: 14:59

Right? And I think all three of those positions are actually problematic. Whether you think we should ban it or you think we should just throw the doors open and embrace it or you wanna just hide your head in the sand, I think all three of those are misguided responses to to this, challenge that AI presents for us. So the truth is somewhere amongst those, perspectives, but, even depending on the day, if you ask me where I land, I might find myself at a different place.

Jared: 15:23

Do you think so if you look at, you mentioned the world the World Wide Web. I believe I'm saying that correctly. Wide Web. You talked about, at that point, there were I I think you could argue that the same, triangle with the corners existed at that point as well. At this point, though, I feel like that's almost solidified where people have this is the stance we're taking on this.

Jared: 15:47

Do you think the reason that you're kind of floating right now with generative AI is because it's such an emergent and new technology? And do you think that later down the road, there'll there'll be a point where we solidify it?

Dave Mulder: 15:58

I'm so glad you've asked me that follow-up question here because I think that that is the truth of it. I think if if we look back thirty years ago and we're trying to figure out this new technology and we're not sure what to do with it. Right? Thirty years on, I think we're gonna come to a pretty clear consensus of where we should land. Right?

Dave Mulder: 16:16

And I think that that's the hard part of this right now because this is an emerging technology, and that means things are fluid. The the very nature of emerging technologies. We we are looking at ways in education in particular, like, what is this going to do to what we think of as teaching and learning? And the answer to that feels unclear yet. I mean, I have some ideas based on the history of ed tech and stuff, but but it does.

Dave Mulder: 16:37

It feels unclear. And I can't predict. Like, where are we gonna be thirty years from now? I can't predict two years from now. Come on.

Dave Mulder: 16:44

You know, when you think about how quickly AI chatbots have emerged and how many EdTech tools that I've been using for years suddenly have AI features that are added right into them. And whether you wanna use them or not, like, this this is there. Like, many, many, many of the AI tool or the, EdTech tools that are out there have an AI functionality built into them now. So this this is the world we're living in.

Jared: 17:05

So based on, writing this book, has your own teaching practice changed at all? How have you been using and we've probably talked about this in the past, but I'm wondering if the usage of these tools has changed a bit since you, wrote this book.

Dave Mulder: 17:21

Well, it's interesting. You know, I I mentioned I use AI pretty regularly, in my own daily practice. Right? And I'm always trying to be very cautious and mindful about that, because I think one of the things that I'm very concerned about for my students is how easy it is to offload our thinking Mhmm. And and to not do the good god delighting creative work that that is this actual generative thing.

Dave Mulder: 17:44

I I jokingly sometimes talk about Rosie the robot. Right? Like, I I watched the Jetsons as a child, and I wanted Rosie the robot to cook and clean and, you know, vacuum the the rug and do all the chores I didn't wanna do. And instead of Rosie the robot, I got this boring robot that it it does things that I'm supposed to be good at, like making pictures and generating text. And instead, I still have to wash the dishes.

Dave Mulder: 18:05

Right? It's like, I I got the wrong robot here. So so that's part of it. Right? I I wanna be really mindful about the way I use technology.

Dave Mulder: 18:13

I wanna be really mindful about the way I encourage students to use or not use technology. And and AI is just a really great example of that. So one helpful heuristic that I use when when I'm using AI, I try to think of it in terms of if I'm going to be very intentional about using AI for an a teaching task. And I I'm totally cribbing this from Carolyn Tomlinson from her book, fulfilling the promise of the differentiated classroom. If you're not familiar, Carolyn Tomlinson was one of the gurus of differentiated instruction back in the nineties, early two thousands.

Dave Mulder: 18:45

And one of the things that she suggests for differentiation so this is a completely different context. I'm applying it to AI prompting here. Think of it in terms of role, audience, format, topic. Acronym is wrapped. Right?

Dave Mulder: 18:58

It's it's such a good one. And so when you're thinking about how do I prompt the AI in a way that keeps me with my hands on the driver's seat, you first give it a role. Say, I am writing as a fill in the blank for what your role is in education. As a professor of education who's teaching a class on methods of teaching STEM, that's for instance. Right?

Dave Mulder: 19:19

So I'm gonna name the role that I'm coming at this in, the audience. Who are my students then? My students are third year college students who are preparing to be teachers. Format. What do I need it to create?

Dave Mulder: 19:30

I need you to create a rubric for the project that I am trying to assess my students learning and then the topic. And then I'll actually describe in some detail what the topic is. Now I like this as an approach because it makes it very clear. Like, this is the role that I'm coming from. Here's the real students I'm working on.

Dave Mulder: 19:47

This is the format that I'm generating and the topic on which it's being generated. And that keeps me pretty confident that I'm not just, you know, pulling pieces out of thin air and and unsure, you know, what I'm gonna get. I I say this. I use rubrics as an example. This is one of those places where I find AI incredibly valuable for my own time as as an educator.

Dave Mulder: 20:06

I create man, in my career, I probably created a 100 rubrics. Right? And I think every time I write a rubric, it takes me, like, an hour to put the rubric together. Right? Like, that's a lot of time over the years that I put into rubrics.

Dave Mulder: 20:17

Well, now I just spend five minutes writing a really thoughtful raft based prompt for the AI to tell it here's exactly what I want. It never gets it exactly right. Right? I I like the 80% rule. The AI is gonna get you 80% of the way there.

Dave Mulder: 20:29

Never assume the AI is gonna get you a 100% of the way there. Right? I got that from one of the AI companies, probably from magic school. I think that's part of their their idea. Right?

Dave Mulder: 20:37

Mhmm. K. 80% rule. And and then yeah. Okay.

Dave Mulder: 20:40

So I I spent five minutes writing the prompt. I get the result generated in ten seconds, and then I can take two or three minutes to say, oh, I gotta fix this. Gotta fix this. So now I've invested a total of about ten minutes. That gave me a bunch of time.

Dave Mulder: 20:51

I can actually use that rubric to give feedback to my students because that's the part of the work. Like, I can't replace that part. But if I can eliminate some of the scut work of teaching, you know, some of these lower level tasks, that to me is the value add, the real bonus. So I think that's the practical application piece, I'd say. Like, what are we gonna ask the AI assistant to do for us?

Dave Mulder: 21:11

Let's keep humans doing the human work. When I say teach like a human, that's what I really mean here. Let's have humans do the work that we're created to do, and humans are always gonna use tools. We have always used tools. That's part of the story of humanity.

Dave Mulder: 21:23

We create tools because we're created to create things. And we're gonna okay. My example I always go back to is if I'm digging a hole, I'm going to use a shovel to dig that hole. I am not gonna dig if I'm digging a really big hole, I'm gonna use a backhoe. I need a more powerful shovel.

Dave Mulder: 21:36

Right? So it's not that you don't use tools. It's choosing the right tool for the right work. And and that, I think, is the mismatch that we sometimes feel when it comes to AI. It's like, well, this can do all kinds of things.

Dave Mulder: 21:48

Just because it can doesn't mean you should use it to do those things. Right? Like, I'm gonna try to choose the right tool.

Jared: 21:54

I do have one more question, and I thought of this as you were talking. Those that are using it are getting further, further along in using it.

Dave Mulder: 22:01

Mhmm. Yeah.

Jared: 22:02

And Rob and I have used the or Rob, and I've took taken it from him, is using the idea of floating islands where those that are using it are on an island. Those that aren't are on another island, but the problem is they're floating. And as those that are using it use it more, the islands are getting further and further apart. And it's gonna be a lot harder to build that bridge in between the two as the distance gets further, which to me starts like the beginning of a division. Like, and I'm I'm afraid that there's gonna be two camps that are forming between those that use and those that don't use, which can cause ascension and everything else.

Jared: 22:41

What would you say to educators on both sides, how they should interact with each other in a way that will keep that connection going? I'm

Dave Mulder: 22:55

so glad.

Jared: 22:56

You've got a faculty member who is like, I don't want to use it, and I don't think we should ever use it. Then you have one that says, I want to use it for everyday practices, and I can't imagine not using it. What would you say to both of those parties?

Dave Mulder: 23:09

Yeah. I'm so glad you asked this question, Jared. This is, I think, the real challenge. This is not just with regard to technology. I feel this in so many parts of culture right now that everything feels like it's running to the polls.

Dave Mulder: 23:19

Right? Either you're on this side or you're on this side, and no one's looking at the middle ground anymore. And and I think this would be my deep hope that we can all look more towards the middle because most of us are somewhere in this messy middle ground. And when it comes to AI, I think, yes, we start to see the haves and the have nots. And this idea of a digital divide, this is the latest edition of the digital divide, right, that people are separating themselves into camps based on their willingness or lack of willingness to to explore.

Dave Mulder: 23:47

So I think an intentional pathway forward could be, get people who are both kinda skeptical of AI and people who are more likely to embrace it and have them sit down side by side. This takes some intentionality Mhmm. And and to actually have an authentic conversation about why you end up in that place. And this is uncomfortable for a lot of people. Right?

Dave Mulder: 24:08

It's easier to have sound bites where we're just saying yes this or no that. Right? It it's harder to actually have an authentic conversation. But I think especially for the skeptics who are looking at AI and saying, I'd never want to use this in any way, shape, or form, to help them to find some small ways that AI could actually be a benefit for them. And so, you know, I've got some use cases in the book where I suggest I think these restoration oriented ways.

Dave Mulder: 24:32

And I I mentioned rubrics already. Rubrics feels like low hanging fruit for me for any educator, because if you see the power of how you can use AI to help you with some of those low level tasks, that that can be a huge benefit. I think for folks in K-twelve audience, the low hanging fruit there might be to level out reading. Like if you give a piece of text to the AI chatbot and say, hey, this is written at Lexile 700. I need it written at Lexile 400.

Dave Mulder: 24:59

It will do that for you. Right? And for teachers who are looking to differentiate for their students' good, oh my goodness. That is a time saver and a huge blessing. That is a very restoration oriented way of thinking about this.

Dave Mulder: 25:11

For for folks who are a little bit more skeptical and you're looking at your colleagues who are so quick to embrace AI, I think asking them some questions about what is the end goal of of this. If if the end goal is simply efficiency, I would really push back against that because I think sometimes efficiency is the enemy of effectiveness. And that that is a a hard thing for some educators to hear, because I am one who tends towards looking for ways to make my work more efficient. I I I fully admit. Like, I'm not proud of this, but I fully admit.

Dave Mulder: 25:43

Like, I boy, if there are ways but the people are the work. The people are the work in education. Right? Like, we're we're really about forming people. And if we think of our work as educators as working towards formation, well, that's going to be inefficient sometimes.

Dave Mulder: 25:58

And and we in order to be effective, we sometimes need to slow down and make it more human centered, more humane, the the work that we're doing here. Because I think that's actually walking at Jesus speed. The the way that he engaged with people, it was never about efficiency. It was about effectiveness and slowing down and being willing to have a little bit slower more time. But, again, maybe this is where things meet in the middle If we can find ways to build in some low level task efficiencies, that gives us the time to have more of these conversations too that we can be more effective.

Rob: 26:30

This has been amazing. From the cornfields of Iowa Corn to corn, like

Jared: 26:36

you said.

Rob: 26:36

Corn to corn.

Dave Mulder: 26:37

That's right.

Rob: 26:38

You have, I think, brother, done a an excellent job taking the time to write what you've written, and I will be going back through and looking at it more and more as we are starting to do some of those things here at Cedarville. And I hope our listeners will take some time wherever they are on that triangle

Jared: 26:59

Mhmm.

Rob: 26:59

To think through where am I, be honest, and then think how can I come towards the middle? How can I move away from the polls? I used to have a mentor who would say to us, Rob, you gotta keep things in the center of biblical tension. So instead of going good. Instead of going to polls, because one or the other is not gonna do do you service, it's staying where scripture would have you be and so that you can be effective exactly like you ended, your last your last refrain for us.

Rob: 27:38

And I am just thankful that we've had this opportunity to, have this time with doctor Mulder.

Jared: 27:45

Yeah. The book is called teach like a human. You can get it on Amazon. Doctor Mulder, you're one of my favorite people. I I appreciate you so much for coming back on and being a kindred spirit and a a close friend in this journey we are going through with EdTech.

Dave Mulder: 28:02

It is my pleasure to be with you today, friends.

Ryan: 28:05

Thanks for listening to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If you have any questions about Doctor. Mulder's book or our conversation with him, please feel free to reach out to us at CTLPodcastCedarville Cedarville dot edu. You can also reach out to us on LinkedIn. Finally, don't forget to check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog.

Ryan: 28:23

Thanks for listening.