Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “The Lutheran Educator”
Ahhh, summertime and the living is easy . . . right? No, not really. Just because it’s June or July doesn’t mean teachers stop thinking about teaching. Most of the teachers I know spend their summers preparing for the year to come. Sometimes that means taking courses to fulfill requirements for state certifications or advanced degrees, attending week-long workshops in …
As summer quickly approaches, you’re probably thinking about the year in review—or perhaps you’re simply looking forward to a relaxing summer. Either way, you’ve just spent a year putting your absolute all into teaching your kids, communicating with families, and preparing them for the future. And, as a Lutheran teacher, you know that just because the year has ended, your prayerful …
The year 1529 represents a landmark moment in the history of religious instruction. In that year, Luther’s Small Catechism was first released, inspired by Martin Luther’s assessment and concern of doctrinal knowledge at the time. As he, Melanchthon, and others surveyed the state of churches and schools, they found pastors largely uninformed and entire congregations steeped in superstition and ignorance …
Those of us in education often struggle with competing values. There are realities to consider, such as the fact that some teachers are working with large class sizes and schedules that make it hard to devote significant time to each piece of student work. From this perspective, we look for assessment strategies that decrease grading time and increase efficiency for the teacher. …
Out of decades of research about what does and doesn’t work in education, only a small number of ideas are almost universally accepted. Feedback is one of them. We need feedback to learn, and this is true in and out of the classroom. Sometimes the feedback is subtle or so integrated into the experience that we don’t recognize it, but it …
Last year I had the joy of working with a group of colleagues on a task force about portfolios in education, especially as we are finding that different groups at the university use different software packages. While our task was largely focused on providing advice on policy and practice in reviewing and selecting portfolio software options, we also took the time …
I think you will agree that checkups and autopsies are two completely different things. They serve different purposes. They meet different needs. You might be wondering what in the world I’m writing here, but stay with me and I’ll explain the important lesson we can glean from this. The first is all about determining a person’s health and then responding …
In the 2016 book Pedagogy of Faith, I contributed a chapter on the role of grades in teaching the faith. The topic comes up often when I talk to other teachers, and the chapter seemed to resonate with a quite a few readers. So I decided to expand on some of the ideas in that chapter over the upcoming weeks, creating a …
During my first year as a teacher, I had the joy of working with seventh and eighth graders. One of the things I most enjoyed about teaching this age was their wonderful curiosity. I’ve taught students from middle school all the way through graduate school, and I still find that middle school students ask some of the most interesting questions. …
A number of years ago, there was a video created to illustrate the fact that things are not what they seem in the visuals that surround us. It showed a young model getting ready for a photo shoot. She sat down wearing no makeup. Then they added some makeup. You could quickly watch the transformation. Yet, when the makeup was …
