Ministry Development Plans

At the Area Lutheran High School Conference last week, administrators shared success stories and strategies from their schools regarding implementation of ministry development plans. Some have used MDP reminders note cards, accountability partners and/or vision boards (Matt Moeller Template) that have helped various faculties and teachers to use their MDP goal to improve student learning: Others shared that peer visits and student surveys have been effective ways to determine whether the MDP plan is improving student learning. Consider whether any of these would be helpful for you in carrying out your plan.

If you are still trying to determine a goal for your plan, your might research PBL (Project Based Learning). A new body of research on Project Based Learning was just released that makes the case for PBL with the strongest evidence yet, using randomized control studies.

If you have started doing research for your plan and are ready to share resources, you might contribute a book recommendation, professional development opportunity, MDP collaboration invite on the KML PLC website.

Comments

Life grows when...

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Infographics: An Easy Way to Increase Visuals in the Classroom At the Wisconsin Association of Teachers of Foreign Languages conference this past weekend, one of the sessions was about the use of infographics in the classroom. Infographics visually organize information about a topic. Doing a simple internet search for infographics about an idea (world religions, periodic table, derivatives) provides you with a variety of charts and pictures that can help students look at information in a new way. If none of the results give you what you were looking for, you can also create your own on a number of different sites. Infogr.am and Piktochart are two popular ones. Piktochart also has an option that you can use to break down the infographic in visual chunks as an alternative presentational tool for a PowerPoint. You could also have your students use an infographic as an alternative to making the classic poster. As with all material you bring into the classroom, review info...

The More I Lecture, the Less I Know They Understand

Josh S. sent me this interesting article regarding lecturing in a classroom. It is really common to hear that lecturing is bad, and that hands-on inquiry is good. However, this article puts the debate in a new light. It isn't that lecturing is always bad. Sometimes it may be good. However, lecturing prohibits the teacher from truly knowing what the students know.

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