Teachers from Idaho Conference elementary schools and Gem State Adventist Academy gathered at GSAA on Oct. 21, 2024 for an informative teacher in-service.
Craig and Lizzie Mattson came from Northwest Christian School in Puyallup, Washington, to share what Washington Conference is doing to encourage students in their academic journey. Craig is the principal and Lizzie teaches seventh grade.
In Idaho Conference, students in third grade and above participate in Measure of Academic Progress testing three times a year. This helps students and teachers know what areas each student needs to work on. Typically, these results are shared with the teachers, parents and students. That can be the end of it, or a teacher can encourage a student to work to improve in a specific area.
The Mattsons presented a process that Washington Conference has begun to implement. MAP results are shared with the students in a format they can import into different educational platforms such as Kahn Academy, IXL and ReadWorks. These platforms help students develop goals for themselves. In essence, the student “owns” their progress.
Idaho Conference teachers practiced using the platforms so they could see how they worked and be able to provide support to their students. A lot of information was shared, which could be overwhelming for teachers who already have full plates! The Mattsons challenged the teachers at the end of the day to choose at least one part to implement in their classrooms.
Gina Duncan, parent of an eighth-grader at Boise Valley Adventist School, shared that her daughter's teacher decided to implement giving the students the opportunity to develop their own learning goals based on their MAP results. Her daughter was excited about that and has already chosen an area to improve upon before the next round of testing.
While MAP testing has shown the improvements students make the longer they are in Adventist education, this makes the results more personal to the students. They can take ownership of their progress and the teacher can provide support for them as they seek to improve. Imagine how much greater impact Adventist education can make on each individual student!
The platforms are grade- and age-specific, so children in third grade won’t be expected to have the same progress as older students. They will have academic improvement based on their own abilities and desire to achieve.
Elementary teachers, on a second day's worth of in-service training, explored incorporating art into their curriculum to assist their students’ achievements in areas ranging from math and science to language skills, which includes reading, English and Bible classes.
Katie Frey, commercial artist, walked the teachers through several art projects, showing them how they can add an art project to other subjects. There has also been a movement to add art to STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — making the acronym STEAM. When students' brains are challenged in different ways, their brains can learn to look at their classwork from a different perspective.
