Christian Educator Certificates

This course will explore the Bible as the ongoing story of and for God and creation, paying special attention to the way in which God's story is intertwined with that of humanity and the world. In asking whether and in what way the Bible is also our story, educators will attempt to identify which hermeneutical methods might help them discern its significance for present-day life, including the academic enterprise.

This course will present an understanding of schooling in terms of the Reformational tradition in philosophy. It will present a Reformational reading of and orientation to the modern world in which schooling presently takes place. In the process schooling will be examined and placed within today’s complex social and cultural environment. That human environment will in turn be placed within a cosmos-wide perspective. From this perspective the cosmos itself finds itself within the covenant by which creatures partner in love with the God who creates, upholds, and redeems the creation in the intricate dance of meaningful existence. Schooling will thereby manifest a distinct identity as an elemental building block of our contemporary socio-cultural arrangements. Its identity will relate to other societal institutions and practices to which it is connected by countless ties.

This course will provide educators with a vocational vision of Christian educational innovation and leadership within the context of: 1) nurturing a personal understanding of their calling; 2) gaining an introductory understanding of how people make sense of their lives, finding their way in the world, and contributing to the cultures in which they participate, and in particular, to become critically familiar with the notions of world-viewing, practice, and culture-making; and 3) to begin cultivating personal competency in critical and constructive reflection on their professional practice.

This course will explore school and classroom culture, with particular attention to: 1) developing critical reflective skills about cultivating learning communities of grace, 2) gaining an understanding of how to be a leader of school culture, and 3) considering how learning can be linked to larger movements seeking to effect change in both local and international communities.

Designed for classroom teachers who desire to continue to develop their Christian worldview in the context of their teaching through the integration of faith and practice, are committed to meeting the needs of all learners, and who have a growth mindset and desire to practice student-led learning.

• Transformative Teaching: The Role of a Christian Educator
  This is a course for instructional leaders as they consider their roles as Christian educators. We will consider our context as Christians as we are called to be transformers of society and culture by seeking justice and righteousness for those who are marginalized and disenfranchised. In this course we will consider constructivism, a dominant educational theory in the twenty-first century that informs student-centred pedagogies such as Project Based Learning, through the lens of Scripture and investigates the assumptions that it makes. We will explore our calling as Christian educators to transform culture in our schools, local community, and the world.

• Deeper Learning: From Wonder to Inquiry to Practice
  This course explores learning as a journey from wonder to inquiry to action. It seeks to help Christian educators develop Deeper Learning in the context of:  

  1. 1. A celebration of the learner - What does it mean to be created in God’s image?

     2. A mindfulness towards learning design - How does curriculum, instruction, and assessment  inspire us to live out our lives as Kingdom Ambassadors who are intentional about character formation and loving our neighbours?

     3. A responsiveness to culture - How do we embody our mission in every aspect of school life and live it out in God’s world?

Designed for new and aspiring administrators who would like to continue to develop their Christian worldview in the context of leading schools, who are committed to leadership marked by vision, character, and adaptivity; and who are committed to cultivating learning communities of grace.

• How to Coach a Strong Team: Leading People, Building Instructional Capacity, and Securing Accountability
  This course provides frameworks and tools for setting directions, building relationships, developing people, developing a school culture and structures to support desired practices, and securing accountability. This course starts with attention to the character of the leader. It continues with an exploration of the processes necessary to gain competency in the cultivation of vision, the nurture of trust, the leading of change, the building of teams, professional coaching, and the supervision of professional development. It concludes with hiring practices, handling conflict, and terminations of service.

• How to Finance a Vision: Setting Direction and Managing Change within Financial Limitations
  This course provides frameworks and tools for leadership in making the connections between the vision of a school, the budgeting process, and fundraising. The course starts with an introduction to Henri Nouwen’s spirituality of fundraising. It continues with an introduction to the basic financial documents that a principal should be able to read and to the Canadian Revenue Agency documents relevant to schools. It explores the art of communicating the story told by school budgets as a necessary element of fundraising. The course concludes with the processes necessary to gain competency in working with both school boards and staffs (with an emphasis on financial and advancement staff) on the financial aspects of school management.

Leadership is not about personality, authority, position, influence, or power as such. Leadership is an art, a craft, a practice, to which everyone is called sometime or other, in widely different situations. Leadership can be practiced with varying degrees of authority, from any position, at varying scales of influence, and with varying access to different sources of power. The kind of leadership that students will learn and practice in this course has to do with diagnosing and addressing the toughest problems experienced by organizations, communities, institutions, and societies. This kind of leadership demands political skill: the skill to discern the overt and covert concerns and interests, agendas, and alliances within the organizations, institutions, and societies we serve, and to give each their due while not failing to pursue the common good. Educators will learn a leadership language, try out a set of tools and frameworks, and workshop our fresh insights and skills.

We humans make sense of things by telling stories. In this course we will learn how to do critical reflective practice, primarily by telling stories about our everyday professional lives. We will zoom in on the story of an ordinary day at work, and then zoom out to the story of our career to date, zoom out further to the story of our work community, and zoom out even further to the overarching story of God’s world. In the process we will learn qualitative research skills, receive an introduction to phenomenology (the philosophical study of lived experience), develop our own approach to praxis (that is, the craft of morally-oriented, theoretically-informed, and theory-generating critically reflective practice), and, most significantly, come to terms with who we are in what we do.