Collaboration in Religious Education - Ethical Principles

The desire for greater collaboration and sharing of best practice has seen four secondary schools in Christchurch come together to analyse how they teach a Religious Education ("Ethical Issues") paper. 

The teachers began the workshop by reflecting on the following questions:

What ethical principles/ social actions would you like to explore?

How do you assess your students understanding?

How would you like to assess your students understanding?

What changes would you like to make to your teaching practice in this topic?

How can we develop student curiosity in this topic?

As a group we analysed the standard and broke it down into key features and aspects. (Click link below).

https://goo.gl/imGMUx

It became evident as we discussed student centered learning that more than just content knowledge is required. We identified key skills to develop within our students and what some effective strategies could be. Some teachers discussed the benefits of creating a cross curricular module and working with staff who have particular expertise in developing these skills within the students in their classroom. 

An idea we explored was the use of adaptive skills and how our young people will be in a job market that is characterized by change. With this in mind we looked at the pros and cons of  Universal Design Learning and how we could implement this within our teaching and learning programmes. (Click on link below)

https://goo.gl/IdtBOQ

The most effective feature of this workshop was the sharing of ideas and experiences. There is a huge amount of skill and passion within our schools and this was evident throughout the workshop.


In Term Three we will be holding two further workshops on topics that are selected by participating teachers. If you are interested in attending please ask your Director of Religious Studies or email jcumming@chch.catholic.org.nz