Spaces where learners flourish are spaces of discovery and possibility, where imagination and creativity are nurtured, where learners engage deeply and meaningfully with each other and the world, where learners have room to discover and pursue their passions under the loving guidance of adults who share the learning space. I believe most good teachers want […]
Three Days into My Teaching Career, 1994 Twenty-nine students dutifully pulled out a worksheet. Words like erosion, deposition, and alluvial spilled into every blank. The power of assigning humbled and scared me. If my command generated this much work, I wondered, how much would students do if they really wanted to learn something? I have […]
Like most teachers, I have asked students to work on projects in my classes. The idea of having students make and create projects is not new. Project-based learning (PBL), however, shifts student learning to be through the project rather than using the project as a reflection of learning at the end of a unit or […]
I figured it would be a pretty easy thing to do. About eight years ago, I began teaching a college course called “Fine Arts in the Classroom.” Since this is an elective course that education students take toward the beginning of their course of study, I thought it would be easy enough to incorporate project-based […]
A Vision for Education Education reform has been a hot topic in North America for many years. In 2011, Barack Obama focused his State of the Union address on America’s need to “Win the Future.” The speech highlights education as a primary pillar in a global competition for dominance: “If we want to win […]
Thoughtful Christian educators, realizing that they live and work in a rapidly changing world, are constantly looking for ways to improve the way they do their work. They ask themselves questions like these: How can we reconcile the constant emphasis on the need to encourage our students to develop twenty-first-century learning skills with our mission […]