David I. Smith, Author at David I. Smith

Articles & Essays Faith and Teaching Featured Resources

Students and Vocation in the Present Tense

This post originally appeared on the Christian Scholar's Review blog, and is reproduced by permission.Some time ago, I noticed a poster on a departmental noticeboard at my university bearing the heading “Vocational Retreat.” It invited students to join a retreat at which alumni would share…

David I. SmithMarch 31, 2022

Articles & Essays Featured Technology in Schools

Consider the Snail: Teaching Online and Learning to Breathe

This post originally appeared on the Christian Scholars Review blog, September 8, 2020, and is reproduced by permission. Snails, it turns out, have things to teach us, even for folk with advanced degrees. Things that could be relevant to an online course. Things that carry…

David I. SmithFebruary 16, 2021

Girl on mountain peak looking over valley

Articles & Essays Featured Voices from the Past

Reflections on How to Begin a Semester

This post originally appeared on the Christian Scholars Review blog, January 8, 2021, and is reproduced by permission. I ended last year with some reflections on how to end a semester. Here I offer some reflections on how to begin one. They were provoked by…

David I. SmithFebruary 11, 2021

Articles & Essays Featured Voices from the Past

Sticking with the Task: Some Reflections on Hope and Co…us.

This year, the 350th anniversary of the death of one of the most interesting educators of all time, my aim is to post a piece in each month of 2020 about John Amos Comenius. I am also writing this during the early days of state-wide…

David I. SmithMarch 30, 2020

Articles & Essays Voices from the Past

What Year Is It?

Many years ago I read a piece of advice that I have not regretted taking to heart. The advice was basically that once your studies are done and your career starts, you should choose a deep, important thinker (the advice was, I believe, in a…

David I. SmithJanuary 22, 2020

Articles & Essays Faith and Teaching

Ending Well

It’s the last day of 2019, and perhaps a somewhat arbitrary ending is a good opportunity to think about other, perhaps weightier, kinds of endings. A few years ago, during a conversation with a colleague about how liturgy and pedagogy are related, it struck me…

David I. SmithDecember 31, 2019

Faith and Teaching Resources Talks, Lectures, Interviews

The “Christian” Classroom

In July 2019 I spent two weeks in Australia, ending with visits to several schools in Sydney, New South Wales. While I was there, I had the opportunity to visit the Center for Public Christianity and sit down with one of their Fellows, Natasha Moore,…

David I. SmithAugust 29, 2019

Scholarship Technology in Schools

Researching Digital Life Together

How is digital technology changing Christian schools? And how are Christian teachers thinking about the changes and how to address them? These questions have been at the heart of the research in which I have been involved for the past several years, and will be…

David I. SmithJune 6, 2019

Articles & Essays Language and Culture Learning

Some Doubts about “Incarnation”

This piece was written at a time when there was a marked trend in popular evangelical writing about cultural difference to talk about the desirability of being "incarnational". Since then there has been some retreat from that language (including in a later edition of the…

David I. SmithApril 1, 2019

Faith and Teaching Talks, Lectures, Interviews

Faith & Leadership Interview: What being Christian has to do with how we teach

Formation happens not only from what students are taught but also from how they are taught, says a scholar of faith and learning. What are the implications for teachers who are Christian? Today, teaching is basically viewed as a matter of technique, says David I.…

David I. SmithMarch 5, 2019

David I. Smith