Illuminating the Future of Christian Education
Today was a robust, action-packed day #2 of pre-planning. Front-loading and launching the key initiatives for the upcoming semester, communicating the basic “housekeeping” items, duties + red binders (Thank you Mel), preparing for R & D teams (Thank you Angél), and getting CPR (re)-certified (Thank you Anne-Brown and Patsy). Here are the slide presentations for Advisory (Thank you Max and Tasha), Visible Thinking (Thank you Ann and Charles), and Eportfolios (Thank you Katie).
Prepare to Launch I count myself fortunate to be part of an organization that encourages the launching and shipping of ideas, that embraces a ‘fail up’ culture of learning and achievement. This has empowered my colleagues and I to boldly try new ideas. Reflecting on the last few years, I can recall numerous wins and successes as well as a few that I’d love to ‘redo.’ Why do some initiatives go so well while others struggle or fail? What makes the difference? Fail Ups In my first year as a division head, I recall our team was eager to help […]
Launching Student Led Conferences One of our major initiatives, Student Led Conferences, is about to debut. In order to prepare, conference mentors will meet with their mentees this week instead of Advisory. The purpose of the second meeting is two-fold… 1) Cultivate deeper relationships with your mentees (get to know them well) 2) Coach them in revising their 2 goals (1 academic, 1 personal). Try SMART goals OR challenge them to pose their goals as questions (How might I {action} in order to {significant impact}? To truly make this debut a success, mentors and students will meet a total of […]
Unleash the drone! A crowd of over 350 students and teachers cheered and watched in awe as the DJI Phantom 3 drone was unleashed on middle school during chapel announcements. The drone is the newest piece of interactive technology to be purchased for student and teacher learning. While many fascinating learning opportunities exist with such tech (students will learn to fly, as well as design new uses and explore ethical decision making in current events), our drone has become a vehicle for introducing another emerging technology: digital badging. Unleash the drone! As a way to expand the learning measures, Mrs. […]
4 Characteristics of a Quality ePortfolio 1) Easy to Use – We launched our first version of a student eportfolio using Google sites two years ago. It was the result of a collaborative summer grant with a team representing Preschool, Lower, Middle, and Upper School. The product was visually appealing and featured two major sections: Collection and Showcase. The Collection was for everything. Finished, unfinished, polished, and imperfect. The Showcase was reserved for only the finest works. All of the learning demonstrations and reflections were curated by the 6 MV Mindsets (Collaborator, Communicator, Solution Seeker, Ethical Decision Maker, Creative Thinker, […]
The jury is still out amongst many about badging. It’s no secret I’m a fan, though much remains to be learned. The work of this summer’s XLR8 summer grant program has only further activated my enthusiasm for exploring and experimenting with badging and micro-credentialing in a variety of scenarios. Next week, when teachers return for pre-planning, I hope they will begin to see the value (and the fun) and share in the growing interest in badging. I could not be more proud of the work of Amy and Chrissy in this area. Get ready folks! In anticipation of the work […]