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Helping Students Develop Discernment, Agency, and Empathy The Thrive Public Schools in San Diego, CA have promised to help students develop discernment, agency and empathy. This post explores the history behind that promise, what it means, and how they go about fulfilling it. | How Leadership Experience Affects Students This post explores how early leadership experiences are valuable for students and the type of skills these experiences help to develop. Learn more from this study of 378 seventh-grade students. | 5 Things That Make Project-Based Learning Culturally Responsive Project-based learning (PBL) is starting to catch on across the country and it is useful to see the connections between PBL and culturally responsive teaching (CRT). If PBL is done well, here are 5 reasons it is also culturally responsive. |
Helping Students Develop Discernment, Agency, and Empathy
The Thrive Public Schools in San Diego, CA have promised to help students develop discernment, agency and empathy. This post explores the history behind that promise, what it means, and how they go about fulfilling it.
How Leadership Experience Affects Students
This post explores how early leadership experiences are valuable for students and the type of skills these experiences help to develop. Learn more from this study of 378 seventh-grade students.
5 Things That Make Project-Based Learning Culturally Responsive
Project-based learning (PBL) is starting to catch on across the country and it is useful to see the connections between PBL and culturally responsive teaching (CRT). If PBL is done well, here are 5 reasons it is also culturally responsive.
TECH - Curriculum Pathways
Check out SAS Curriculum Pathways for K-12 content for ELA, Math, Science, Social Studies and Spanish. These are interactive resources, created by educators, that utilize technology to create learning environments otherwise difficult to achieve in the classroom setting. The are pedagogically sound and standards based.
TEACHERS: Connections Go a Long Way for Students With Trauma
Initiating short personal interactions may help students cope with adverse childhood experiences. Read this post to learn about the importance of social connections, or touch points, which lessen the feelings of despair and hopelessness of students who are bringing their significant adversity and trauma into our schools.
TEACHERS: Getting Out of the Essay Rut
Think about all the forms of writing that exist—letters, news articles, video scripts, infographics, press releases, etc. Why are we so hung up on using essays as the primary structure for students to demonstrate writing prowess? There can be little doubt that teachers overuse essay writing in schools. Learn about alternative writing assignments which can be just as rigorous as the traditional essay and can spark young writers’ creativity.
TEACHERS: Doodling Makes Learning More Sticky for Students
Here’s why your students should be doodling = it enhances learning and memory. Research shows that doodling builds cognitive skills – pattern recognition, image recall, analysis, comparison, synthesis, evaluation, and more – as well as conceptual understanding. Read more here.
TEACHERS: More Talking in Class, Please
Providing consistent, structured time for students to participate in collaborative conversations can improve the overall classroom environment because once the need to sit quietly is replaced with opportunities to discuss course content, the amount of off-topic talking declines. Both small group and whole class discussions can provide these opportunities. Check out these strategies for facilitating small group and whole class conversations with students in grades 3 to 12.
TEACHERS: Helping Trios
Use this procedure from AVID to help students develop active listening and speaking skills and learn how to provide and receive feedback.
PARENTS: Teaching Your Child Tolerance in an Intolerant World
“Tolerance means respecting and learning from others, valuing differences, bridging cultural gaps, rejecting unfair stereotypes, discovering common ground, and creating new bonds. Tolerance, in many ways, is the opposite of prejudice.” Using this definition as a starting point, this post outlines some ways to teach your child tolerance in an intolerant world:
PARENTS: How to Help Your Child Get Through a Bad Day
While parents would love to protect their children all the time, there are going to be times when your child is hurting. Then, there will just be bad days – any parent of a toddler can attest to the likelihood of bad days. Parents can play a key role in teaching their children how to handle these difficult days. Here are a few ways you can help your child get through a bad day.
LEADERS: The Why and When of Walk Throughs
Without context and regularity, classroom observations can damage trust between teachers and principals, as well as negatively affect teacher ratings. In this exchange between educators at different schools, a teacher identifies the flaws in the walkthrough status quo at his school, and a principal at another school shares her own journey to becoming a present and positive partner in classrooms. Read their thoughts here.
LEADERS: Schools That Change Lives
In this CACE blog post, Steve Levy discusses how schools impact students lives when everyone in the school is unified on living out their philosophy and there is a common understanding of “how things are done here.” What characteristics does your entire staff agree on that can be practiced together from kindergarten through 12th grade? Are they specific with clear expectations connected to observable behaviors and measurable outcomes? Read more about developing, practicing and celebrating what schools have called Guiding Principles, Character Code, Habits of Learning, etc.
Center for Christian Urban Educators
The Center for Christian Urban Educators seeks to encourage, equip, and empower Christian educators as they impact the lives of the children entrusted to their educational care.
