Now in its sixth year, the Christian Teacher Academy gathered again this past August at Hamilton District Christian High School. Over 70 Christian educators attended.
Built on the evidence that project based learning (PBL) is a pedagogically effective method for empowering both students and teachers to find their God-given place and purpose in life, the Academy supports educators to deepen their implementation of PBL in several different streams ranging from introduction to leadership.
The Academy also uses a project based structure for the week to learn PBL and design our projects. At the launch of the week on Monday, all attendees participated in different entry events out in the community that helped us experience first hand our driving question: “how can the learning in our classroom help to shape our city?” On Tuesday to Thursday, attendees developed mastery in PBL and iterated their own projects with support from coaches and critical friends groups. And, building on the idea that beautiful work needs to be shared, attendees prepared presentations to share with one another and honoured guests on the final day. The presentations shared concrete projects that will be implemented in the upcoming year as well as personal reflections on the learning journey.
Led by Executive Director Harry Blyleven, the Academy continues to pursue relevance and innovation. Consider the following “did you know?” list of accomplishments:
Interested in learning more? Harry would welcome your feedback and questions at hblyleven@hdch.org.
