When a school community chooses to invest in and employ digital technologies, the impact of the choice extends beyond the school walls and the hours of the school day. In fact, proponents of digital technologies highlight the benefit of expanded learning time and space, moving learning beyond the confines of the classroom. What are some […]
Talking about technology in schools seems to come with a built-in temptation toward arguing about big threats and promises. Digital devices will connect our students to the world, transform learning, break down the walls of the school, and unleash student creativity! Digital devices will isolate our students, make them shallow, weaken their thinking skills, and […]
Twenty-first-century digital devices are packaged with the promise of revolutionizing student learning through access to more knowledge, increased organization, wider connectivity to the world, and more. With such powerful tools at the fingertips of students, what role is left for teachers? One high schooler we interviewed said that students have “an all-knowing box of genius […]
One of the most noticeable recent technological changes in our homes and schools is the proliferation of screens. Televisions have given way to computers, tablets, and phones, all of which serve significant functions in our lives. The abundance of these devices has caused widespread concern, particularly about youth, who seem as entranced by screens as […]
There is a child in your class with her head down on the table. She rarely makes eye contact, but rather glances to the side to check who is in her periphery. Smiles are fleeting. Another girl has been “fired” by her friends and she doesn’t know why. These former friends share private information […]
I first became aware of the power of big ideas in an educational context during an early ’90s visit with colleagues to Grant Wiggins’s Center for Learning, Assessment, and School Supervision. This was some years before the publication of Wiggins’s seminal work, cowritten with Jay McTighe, Understanding By Design. As we debriefed the session upon […]
This issue invites you to engage in a time of reading, reflection, and conversation about how we do our work as educators and how we can gain a better understanding of our students, of their concerns, and of the ways in which they see themselves and the world. The need for such reflection was brought […]
When a Christian family is choosing a school for their child, what factors do they consider? To what do we as Christian educators invite them to participate? In this article, three common views of Christian schooling as identified by its claimed benefits are considered and critiqued against biblical priorities with the hope of encouraging Christian […]
I am not a big fan of books on parenting skills and never have been. While I consider myself a crazed learner, I have never found this genre (if you can call it that!) very compelling. Most often the things authors mention are pretty much common sense. After all, can’t most parenting be done well […]
Times of intense change afford us positive opportunities to reshape institutions and operational patterns. As Christian educators, we should seize this opportunity to not only reshape our educational practices, but also to consider new information that has been emerging about the very nature of what we seek to do in Christian schools—educating for wisdom and […]