Our Planning Team for the upcoming Deeper Learning conference is very excited to have had a great response to our request for proposals! We have exceptional leaders coming from many places across North America to share their learning and lead attendees into new understandings. We have organized our conference around five strands shown below. Our confirmed workshop leaders and their … Read More
Deeper Learning in Christian Schools – Update and Invitation
In recent years there has been a movement among Christian schools in Canada and the U.S. towards Deeper Learning, led by a core group of educators, who have gathered from time to time for mutual growth, encouragement, and further networking. In this blog post I would like to clarify terminology and share the efforts of various groups as well as … Read More
Why Teach Math?
I’ve never met a math teacher who was not asked to answer the inevitable moan from her students, “Why do we have to learn this?” Unfortunately, the most common response: “It’s going to be on the test.” What kind of message does that give about learning, and about math? Is working to get a grade on a test the kind … Read More
What’s Your Plan?
If you are an administrator, the latter part of June is an ideal time for reflection and future planning. Immediate day-to-day pressures cease and unless you are in a modified year or year round schedule situation, the pressures to start back up feel down the road. Still fresh in your mind are the things that worked well or didn’t from … Read More
Our Deeper Learning Conversation Update
It was a joy-filled day in the western suburbs of Chicago as learning leaders gathered from all across North America for a substantive conversation around student learning! Our time together was bookended by an opening time of “singing” the parts of an orchestra as a celebration of community, reflecting on how our loving God sings over us, and closing with … Read More
You are Invited to our Christian Deeper Learning Conversation
I am very excited to announce that on November 18 CACE will be sponsoring a gathering of individuals representing schools and organizations interested in discussing ideas and sharing progress related to Deeper Learning in Christian schools. This event will be free of charge and held in Elmhurst, Illinois preceding the Strengthening Christian Schools conference on November 19 and 20. What … Read More
RAFTs: A Creative Way to Demonstrate Understanding
Whether teaching on-line or face-to-face, RAFTs is an engaging strategy that encourages writing across the curriculum and provides opportunities for students to demonstrate understanding in creative ways. The strategy invite students to assume a role, consider their audience, examine a topic from a relevant perspective, and write in a particular format.
Storytelling: Deeper Than Learning
The universe is made of stories, not atoms. –Muriel Rukeyser Aha! Sonya was a very mature kindergartner whose mother was concerned that she would be bored in my class because she already knew how to do everything in the curriculum. Mom was especially peeved that I would be spending two days on the letter M, when her daughter already knew … Read More
Going Deeper into Rooftop Perspectives
In my preceding blog post I wrote a review of Eric Reender’s compelling book, Rooftop Perspectives. In this post, Eric responds to several questions related to the book. What prompted you to write the book? Moving to China and teaching in a Christian school there was a big change. I was an experienced teacher but my experience was all in public … Read More
Rooftop Perspectives – A Big Picture View for Christian Educators
Part of the way through Eric Reender’s wonderful book, Rooftop Perspectives, a character states: “A story is not about answers, but making you think.” Reenders succeeds in doing this in his book by taking us into not one but two stories – using the technique of a story within a story, and of all things, set in China upon two … Read More