This is has been an exciting week here at Colorado Academy.  All faculty and staff have returned, and they are actively preparing for the new academic year. Aside from getting classrooms ready and preparing lessons, the teachers and administration have had some important conversations about 21^st century learning. This summer, the faculty read Tony Wagner’s The Global Achievement Gap, a book I discussed in my newsletter column last spring.  The book has generated some great discussions and debates among our teachers. 

In a session on Tuesday, I asked the faculty to break into small groups and take on the question, “If you could do anything in your classroom, what would you do?”  Teachers broke up into grade-level teams to brainstorm collaborative, project-based learning activities that they could implement this year.  What came back was inspiring: a group of Middle School teachers formulated the idea of a digital documentary on global water issues; Lower School teachers outlined a service learning project to reach out to homeless families, and Upper School Spanish teachers thought about how they might have their students work with and learn from local Spanish-speaking business leaders. 

Innovative teaching takes a lot of work and time to take a learning activity from the drawing board to implementation. Nevertheless, the excitement and enthusiasm that this brainstorming activity generated gives me confidence that our students are going to be engaged in some exciting projects this year.  Also, it underscored for me the talent, dedication, and professionalism of our CA teachers. Welcome back everyone; we look forward to seeing you this Friday at the back-to-school picnics and then on opening day! 
Mike Davis, Ph.D.
Head of School