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Alta Vista is an educational organization, based in Seattle, Washington, USA, that serves Christian education, locally, regionally,
and globally. Our primary concern is to partner with schools, educational leaders, and teachers to help young people become
faithful, visionary, competent, and compassionate disciples of Jesus.
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Collaboration
Alta Vista is entering its third year of collaboration with Seattle
Pacific University to develop Professional Learning
Communities in Christian schools, a project funded by a Murdock Charitable Trust grant to SPU. AV is partnering with SPU
to facilitate the development of learner-centered collaborative teacher teams in the seven schools currently involved
and to develop materials that can be used by other schools in the future.
Learner-centered collaborative teams focus on four essential questions: What do we want our students to learn? How will we
know what and how well our students are learning? How can we engage all students in relevant teaching and learning activities?
How do we respond if some students don't learn or when students already know or learn quickly? As teachers and staff engage
in this kind of collaboration, they take responsibility for the learning of all students, become researchers of their
own practice, engage in curricular decision-making, become skilled interpreters of data of student learning, and
initiators of their own professional development.
Elaine Brouwer continues to collaborate with Tim Krell, adjunct professor at Seattle Pacific University, Bill de Jager
and Joanne den Boer, Curriculum Directors from the
Society of Christian Schools in BC, and Jeff Kiers, administrator
and Drama teacher from Abbotsford Christian on a project called "Spaces Where Learners Flourish."
Our work so far has resulted in a one-hour presentation given twice at
the October 2009 NWCSI/CTABC Teachers' Convention, at the SCSBC's Leadership Conference
in November 2009, at the 2010 joint teachers convention with NWCSI/CTABC/ACSI in October of 2010, and
at the July 2011 International
Transforming Education Conference in Darwin, Australia.
Spaces Where Learners Flourish encourages us to think more carefully and broadly about learning spaces and what it means for learners to flourish
within them. This multimedia presentation tells inspiring, hopeful stories of how educators across the world are responding to the rapidly
changing educational arena. Spaces Where Learners Flourish is an invitation to consider the kind of innovative practices that can transform
the way we equip disciples of Jesus for the 21st century.
A version of this project was presented at the 2011 NWCSI/CTABC Teachers Convention - Heard any tsunami sirens lately? Are you ready? By Bill,
Elaine and Jeff. We plan to continue this collaborative work with the intent of inspiring teachers/leaders to consider what educating for
discipleship looks like in the 21st century.
For more information about this project and how it might be useful to you contact Elaine Brouwer.
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