Innovative Learners Grown Here
The staff, students, and parents of Christ the King Catholic School work hard to identify, introduce, and sustain a challenging and motivational curriculum that gives students hands-on opportunities and promotes lifelong skills like collaboration, problem solving, and learning from mistakes. Below you will find more information about our innovative learning initiatives.
Growth Mindset
What is Growth Mindset?
The belief that with practice, perseverance, and effort, people have limitless potential to learn and grow and that challenges and mistakes are essential to the learning process.
Last year, we introduced Growth Mindset through a book study with the staff, monthly slogans, and activities. This year, we will continue with targeted Growth Mindset lessons once a month. Growth Mindset has become embedded in our school culture and is evident in how our teachers talk to the students about accepting challenges, learning from mistakes, praising effort, and setting goals. We have started to see and hear our students develop growth mindsets through their actions and words and are excited to continue to keep growing!
Click here for more research-based information about Growth Mindset!
STEM
We are in our third year of collaborating with Project Lead the Way (PLTW) to bring STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) curriculum to Christ the King! The teachers set the stage by introducing concepts and providing a problem and then let the students take over. Our students develop lifelong skills like problem solving and collaboration through hands-on units in our St. Patrick STEM Lab. Check out the following links for more information!
Environmental Education
We are continuing our outdoor education initiative that started in 2015. We have installed, and Father Todd blessed, the Saints Isidore & Maria Garden. Each student had the opportunity to plant, care for, and harvest vegetables in the garden. They also had the opportunity to take care of our own flock of chickens. Our middle school students also started on a renovation of an existing flower garden. This year, we are adding a compost tumbler and have planted a fall crop! Our garden gives students the opportunity to apply math and science knowledge to real world situations, become better caretakers of creation, develop healthy eating habits, and serve others by donating our produce to the St. Vincent de Paul Boulevard Place Food Pantry.
We also have a staff and student led environmental club called the A.R.K. Society that, among other things, has developed and implemented a recycling program that has greatly reduced the trash we throw away on a daily basis at lunch and in the classrooms.
Data Driven Instruction
Our students aren’t the only learners in the building! The staff continually embraces new concepts and strategies to help our students grow. One way we do this is through analyzing and acting on data. Our students take the NWEA Map test two to three times a year. This test provides a wealth of information that helps us to challenge each of our students at their individual instructional level. Teachers meet in monthly PLC’s to dive deep into this data in order to differentiate instruction, set goals and develop plans, guide students in establishing their own goals and plans, and evaluate if the plans are working.
Check out these links for more information about NWEA for Parents and PLC’s.
Technology
We use our technology to motivate, prepare, and challenge our students for their future.
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We have a classroom set of Google Expedition viewers that allow teachers to take their students on virtual field trips around the globe and into space. Check out a class in action!
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Our 3rd-8th graders have school gmail accounts and access to Chromebooks. Our middle school students use Google Classroom to turn in homework, which will prepare them for the expectations of area high schools.
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Our kindergarten-2nd graders have access to iPads. Teachers use a variety of apps to enhance and reinforce concepts that are being taught in the classroom.
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All students have access to IXL Math and English. This is a website that provides standards-based practice with preschool through high school level skills. IXL helps our students reinforce what they have learned and also provides a challenge for students who need it.
