Supporting Your Schools Mission

Session Objectives: 
Consider how curriculum planning and instruction can more fully support your school’s mission.
Explore strategies for empowering teachers to act as the living curriculum in your school. 

Session Introduction:
Beth Watts, curriculum coordinator/instructional coach for Christian Academy School System of Louisville, KY, shares the journey her school has embraced to enhance their school mission by focusing on biblical worldview integration. She provides several strategies they have found to be successful and points to processes they have in place to promote the teacher as the “living curriculum.” And, she points to Curriculum Trak as a helpful tool for reviewing and reflecting on these practices in a meaningful way.

Session Video:
(Note: The contents of this video do not start until the 44 second mark of the video)

Session Questions to Consider:

1. Beth uses the term “living curriculum” throughout her presentation. What could you infer she means by that term? How might this view impact your school’s approach to curriculum planning and instruction? 
2. Why is it important for teachers to own both the mapping process and faith formation in the classroom? What misconceptions or wrong assumptions can get in the way of that?
3. Beth shared several strategies her school system employed as they worked toward stronger faith formation in their teachers and students. What strategies stand out to you as something that might be helpful in your school?
4. Beth suggests that breaking the process down into smaller chunks is important. In what ways would that be helpful? How would you organize your current process into more meaningful and manageable pieces? What steps do you think you should take next? 

Recommended Resources: 

Johnson, D. P. Truth Weaving: Biblical Integration for God's Glory and Their Abundant Living. Waking Elms Press, 2015.

Neff, Joe. Building Biblical Worldview: The Three Loves. Rooted Schools, LLC, 2016.