BJU Press Blog

Successful Learning

You want your children to succeed in their education. We do too. We offer practical tips for teaching your children math, science, writing, and more! These tips can be applied to any homeschool curriculum. There are also highlights of our new textbooks with examples of how our curriculum trains your children to have success in their learning.

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Creative Thinking: Connecting the Dots

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boy reading in hammock for creative thinking
My best friend has always insisted that she is not creative. It’s true that she doesn’t gravitate toward crafty projects. But scrapbooking and making art are not the only ways to be creative. Creative thinking is being able to use what you already know to solve a problem you’ve never seen before. And my friend does that all the time as a doctor in the emergency room. Medical doctors need a strong knowledge base. But they also have to be able to connect that knowledge to the patient sitting in front of them.

Is creative thinking an innate skill, or can you teach it to your children? God, the most creative thinker, made us in His image. Therefore, we all have the potential to think creatively. You can help your children learn to connect prior knowledge to new problems. Here are some ways to instill creative thinking.

Add variety to the learning environment.

You have probably designated a place in your home for learning. The benefit to learning and testing in the same place is that it aids memory and recall. However, varying the environment strengthens the ability to apply knowledge in a new context. Homeschooling allows more opportunity for changing the learning environment than traditional classrooms can. Using a variety of teaching methods also promotes creative thinking. Use analogies in your teaching to connect new concepts back to what your kids already know. The variety of environments and methods promotes a variety of mental connections.

Ask open-ended questions.

Before teaching new content, ask questions like, “Since you know seven times five, how would you solve seven times six? What would you try first?” Notice the hint about what prior knowledge will be helpful to apply. The hint gives your children confidence, when faced with a new question. Asking what they would try first, implies that they may need more than one try to solve the problem. Even outside of school, you can entertain open-ended questions that begin with “What if.” Ask your children to think about what they would do in different scenarios, realistic or imaginary. What if we are on a field trip and you can’t find me? What if you could have any superpower you wanted? Let them imagine scenarios they have not encountered by thinking creatively.

Have them explain in their own words.

Ask your children to describe what they have learned recently to Grandma. You can also ask them to teach a younger sibling what they have learned. They will have to know it well enough to use their own words and make it simple. Even an above average student will benefit from study groups. Explaining content to others helps move that knowledge from short-term to long-term memory. The better they remember information, the more likely they will be able to connect that knowledge to new areas.

Encourage collaboration.

Your children may be able to collaborate on some problems at home. If not, be sure to include interactions with other children in your schedule. Giving kids projects to work on together can increase their confidence when they don’t have all the answers. Connecting with people who think differently broadens the scope of their thinking. Working in groups gives kids confidence to think creatively on their own. At the park recently, I saw a group of Boy Scouts tying knots together. The next time one of them needs a knot, what will he do? He will remember that collaboration and connect the dots from what he learned then to the new problem he faces.

Practice.

After teaching in a way that promotes creative thinking, be sure to practice. Thinking creatively is not limited to science and math. Any subject will do. Like any skill, getting better at creative thinking comes with more practice. Inevitably, your children will be unsuccessful. They may not be able to connect to prior knowledge at first. Some kids will be frustrated when solutions are not easy to find. The word “yet” is valuable. When your child says, “My idea isn’t working,” you can add, “yet.” When she says, “I can’t do this,” again you add, “yet.” Talk to your children about times when you had to try again and again. Remind them that a solution that doesn’t work is useful. You know what won’t work, and now you can try other possibilities. Thomas Edison is credited with saying, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Kids and adults can learn to think creatively with intent and practice. If you’re hoping to teach your children to think creatively, what would you try first?

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Valerie is a wife and a mother to a very busy toddler. In her free time she enjoys reading all kinds of books. She earned a B.S. in Biology from Bob Jones University, minoring in Mathematics, and a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from Ohio State University. Valerie has 15 years of experience working in research laboratories and has coauthored 8 original research articles. She has also taught several classes and laboratories at the high school and college levels. She currently works as a Data Analyst and a freelance writer.

Mastery vs. Spiral Learning

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mastery vs. spiral learning
We hope that what we teach our children sticks with them, and that they build on that knowledge for the rest of their lives. But traditional approaches to education often fail to help children retain the material. Short units that focus on good test performance succeed in short-term retention, but do not result in learning that sticks with students long after they’ve finished the unit. However, different approaches that emphasize mastery of concepts help students retain material longer. Two dominant approaches for learning that sticks, specifically in math, are mastery and spiral learning. These learning strategies are tools you can use to choose and adapt curriculum to best support your children.

Mastery Learning

Mastery learning is studying one concept at a time in-depth, mastering it before moving on. This approach focuses on giving children as much time as they need to understand the material. Most traditional approaches have students working in time-constrained units where they move to the next unit even if they haven’t mastered the material. That approach can impede students’ learning. For example, children who don’t understand the concepts necessary for Pre-Algebra will eventually hit a wall because they have too many gaps in their knowledge. They may think, “I just can’t do math!” However, they likely just never mastered the foundational material. In a mastery learning approach, there are no restrictive time frames for learning the material. Students won’t feel rushed to understand all the material. They can move at their own pace to master the concepts.

Spiral Learning

Spiral learning is repeating a set of topics throughout the year, adding more depth to the material each time. For example, each unit may contain addition and subtraction but each treatment of those topics adds a new skill, like increasing the amount of numbers in the equations. If students don’t master the material the first time, they will have many opportunities to practice that material throughout the year. There is no pressure for a child to learn the material the first, second, or even third time.

Frequent practice and review increases a child’s ability to retain information. Spiral learning also encourages flexible thinking and critical-thinking skills because students will have to decide what concept to use to solve a problem. Learning multiple concepts at the same time also encourages them to see relationships between concepts.

Our Approach

While we generally use spiral learning for all courses, at BJU Press, we use both of these learning strategies in our math materials. Our approach promotes mastery as students are continually reviewing skills and uses the spiral approach to cover the same concepts in greater detail each time. Our materials emphasize understanding and application beyond memorization. They provide strategies for helping students master the material and practice real-world application.

Both of these approaches have advantages, and the wonderful thing about homeschooling is that you can match your curriculum to your children’s needs. Perhaps a mastery approach works best right now, but maybe in a different season a spiral approach is better. Remember that there is no timeline for when your child needs to achieve mastery. However long learning takes is the best timeline, and whatever way your children learn is the best approach for you.

Growing Stronger in Hard Times

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growing stronger in hard times
If these past few months of quarantine have taught us anything, it’s to appreciate all the extra time we’ve been able to spend together as families. Many parents have had time to stop and reevaluate what’s really important for their family life. Despite the hardship of isolation from neighbors, coworkers, friends, and church family, we have all learned invaluable lessons. As this unique trial eases or continues, let’s hold on to these lessons and allow God to use them to strengthen our families so we can be growing stronger even in hard times.

Growing Stronger as a Family

One of the main lessons we’ve learned is that we often allow busyness to overtake our lives. This time of quarantine has forced families to postpone normal activities such as work, sports, and music lessons. All of a sudden, everyone has had a lot more free time on their hands! Families have been able to enjoy simple things like outdoor walks, board games, bonfires, and picnics. We’ve been able to tackle those intended chores and house projects. We’ve been free to pursue new hobbies, such as gardening or crafting. All of these activities have provided special times of bonding with our children and making lasting memories. As this period of isolation wanes, let’s continue to guard our time together and keep busyness to a minimum.

More Time for God

Another vital opportunity we’ve been given during this trial for growing stronger is teaching our children to trust in God more than ever. With so many people living in fear and anxiety, there’s never been a better time to remind our families that God is still sovereign, all-powerful, and good. My husband and I have had several wonderful conversations with our daughters about the Lord. We’ve discussed Bible verses that point us to our hope in Christ, our security in His promises, and His faithfulness to us. One of the main verses that has been an encouragement to us is Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”

What a comfort to know that God can use even a virus for good in our lives and for His salvation purposes! We have a peace unbelievers don’t possess or understand. We know that no matter what, God will never forsake us. Nothing can take away our eternal security or our future heavenly home. If you haven’t already, spend some time with your family sharing what God has revealed to you about Himself and His Word during these past few months. Discuss how God wants to grow and strengthen your family as you persevere through this trial, however long it may last.

Special Opportunity

We didn’t ask for, expect, or want this upheaval in our world. But as we keep our focus on the Lord, He can produce lasting spiritual fruit in our lives. Let’s allow God to draw us closer to Him and use our families for His glory during this time!

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Jennifer is a pastor’s wife and mom of two young girls and loves homeschooling them. During her own twelve years of being homeschooled, Jennifer developed a passion for reading and writing. She earned a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and relishes writing during her free time.

21st Century Skills and 21st Century Homeschooling (Part 2)

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21st century skills and homeschooling
What do your children need to be able to do in order for them to be prepared for their future jobs? In a previous post, we explored some of the 21st century skills that educators have identified as key for students’ success and that we believe will help students be effective servants of Christ, their families, their communities, and their employers.

21st Century Skills: The Literacy Skills

These three skills—information literacy, media literacy, and technology literacy—have to do with a person’s ability to find and process information.

Information Literacy

Information literacy is the ability to process information in many different formats. Being able to read informational texts is part of this skill, but there is more to it. If your kids use textbooks, they’re already using informational texts all the time. But they should also be able to use visual analysis, or the process of reading graphs, charts, and other visual forms of data for information. For example, students should be able to understand commonalities from a Venn diagram or see sequences in a timeline.

Media Literacy

Media literacy is the ability to find different kinds of information and knowing how to use those sources effectively. In the information age, we’re surrounded by information all the time, but it’s not always accurate. We often hear facts or details second or third hand and out of context. Children need to learn how to find reliable sources for their information.  But given the constantly changing nature of information today, reliable and unreliable sources come and go. Wikipedia was once universally considered an unreliable source, but today, most people will admit that it’s usually reliable. To be able to keep up, children will need to learn principles for determining reliable sources. For example, does the source include citations for where information came from? Does it address both sides of an issue?

Technology Literacy

Technology literacy is perhaps the skill most closely related to the 21st century. This type of literacy is the ability to use the available technologies. New technologies are just resources, but they can be incredibly powerful ones for those that know how to use them. The best way to learn about technology is to use it. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to enroll your children in a computer programming course. You can simply encourage their curiosity and give them time with the technology. How many dozens of timesaving features are buried in the average word processor that we don’t know about simply because we haven’t explored it?

21st Century Skills: Life Skills

The life skills—flexibility, leadership, initiative, productivity, and social skills—often have more to do with a person’s character than with his or her learning or ability. Some of these skills are the natural outflow of some of the learning skills, and all of these skills require active modeling in real life.

Flexibility

Flexibility is the ability to adapt to changing circumstances with grace and understanding. It has as much to do with how we respond to change as it does with our willingness to change. Flexibility has a lot in common with collaboration. As children work with other people, they need to learn how to adjust their plans and their approach to meet others’ needs. If they learn best while listening to music, and they have a roommate who can’t concentrate with music, then they can be flexible by listening on headphones or going to another room to study. The process of working with people and listening and understanding their needs is the best way to build a flexible character.

Leadership

Leadership, at its core, is simply the ability to motivate others to work together. Children can practice it by demonstrating confidence in their abilities and the abilities of others so that they can accomplish a goal together. This skill also relies on both collaboration and communication, because to learn leadership, children must learn to trust in the abilities of others so they can be confident about those abilities, and they must be able to communicate their own skills and abilities.

Initiative

Initiative is the willingness to fix a problem without an immediate reason to do so. It’s when your children do their chores without you telling them to, or when they pick up trash on the sidewalk simply because it’s a problem they could fix. Students need to learn to fix problems if they can, or to point them out if nobody has noticed them. Initiative is less a skill to be practiced and more a life philosophy that you can instill in your children.

Productivity

Productivity, also called efficiency, is the ability to apply time management skills in order to accomplish more. It requires self-awareness as much as it requires knowing how to plan and effectively manage your time. For example, if you know you never look at or use planners, why would you use up time to put a whole lesson plan in a planner? Similarly, your children need to know how they work and learn best so they can implement a time management plan that works for them.

Social Skills

Social skills are simply the ability to be likeable—to present yourself well and to have awareness of what is or isn’t appropriate in a given setting. These skills also relate closely to communication skills. It’s much easier for kids to be likeable when they speak clearly and understandably. You don’t need to teach your children how to small talk. But they do need to learn how to listen and engage in a conversation that they may not have any initial interest in. They also need to learn how to have an appropriate conversation. Anyone who’s spent a few minutes with children knows they have few boundaries. They’ll share anything and ask anything. Awareness of what’s appropriate for conversation isn’t innate, nor is it universal.

Are these 21st century skills just another checklist to work through to ensure that you’re giving your children the best possible education? No. These skills are actually the foundations of a different way of looking at school. You may have noticed that most of these skills aren’t skills kids are going to learn from what we know as a traditional school experience—reading, lecture, homework, and repeat. But that is a conversation for a future post.

21st Century Skills for 21st Century Homeschooling (Part 1)

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21st century skills in your homeschool

Do you know what one of the most wonderful things about homeschooling is? You have the freedom to be flexible and mobile and do whatever you need to do to ensure that your children will be equipped for their future lives. If you aren’t part of an online academy or a school with strict regulations, then you are free to buy curriculum directly from the curriculum creators. Which means, once those resources are in your home, you get to use them however you like. You can focus on the lessons and skills that you believe will be the most beneficial for your children’s future. You can choose resources that will help them become more effective servants of Christ, their family, their community, and their employer.

So what do you need to teach your kids to be more effective servants in the 21st century? Educators have compiled a list of skills that are vital for students to be successful in their future jobs. Realistically, these 21st century skills (as they are often called) have always been important for preparing students for their lives. However, as people create, innovate, and streamline technology, fewer jobs require mindless drones who just follow instructions. To be effective employees, people will need to be able to create and innovate. The 21st century skills are the skills that most effectively equip students for their future jobs.

When the BJU Press writing teams look at incorporating 21st century skills into our textbooks, they divide them into three categories: the learning skills, the literacy skills, and the life skills. In this post we’ll take a look at the first category of skills.

21st Century Skills: The Learning Skills

These skills are ones that we are always learning and developing, and they’re the ones we’re most familiar with.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is using reasoning skills to determine the implications of information. It’s the crucial step between learning facts and understanding why that information is important. For example, students can learn that Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated on June 28, 1914. But then the students should consider how his assassination led to World War I. In our materials, we rely on effective questioning to develop critical thinking. Children need to go beyond just remembering, understanding, and applying information. They also need to be able to analyze and evaluate it, and the process of analysis and evaluation requires them to use their critical-thinking skills.

Creativity

Creativity as a learning skill does not refer to artistry but, rather, creative thinking. Creative thinking is the ability to use what you know in a new situation to solve a problem or to answer a question that you don’t know. We have a tendency to think that creative thinking is only an innate ability, not a skill to be practiced and taught. But kids learn to be creative thinkers by attempting to solve problems without being told how to solve them.

This ability requires confidence and a certain disregard for failure. If you’re going to try proposing new solutions to problems, you have to accept that your solution might not work. And that’s okay. You just try again until something works. Asking your children to define words they haven’t seen or heard before is asking them to think creatively. They’ll need to be able to use what they know about words and word roots, combine it with what they know from the word’s context, and then create a definition in their own words.

Collaboration

Collaboration is the skill of working with other people and learning how to compromise for everyone’s benefit. If you have more than one child, you’re probably already working on developing their collaboration skills. It’s a fact of life for siblings. However, they’ll need to be able to collaborate on a professional level as well as a personal one. Group projects are especially helpful to teach students how to listen to others, share ideas, and encourage each other to be useful, contributing members of a team. Children who work and learn together have a unique advantage over those who always work and learn alone. They’re able to recognize how people can work differently but still be effective. And they’re also able to adjust their own processes to accommodate those who work differently.

Communication

Communication is the ability to clearly and conscientiously express what you need or expect from others. It is not just the ability to speak and talk to others. Many people have the ability to speak but have little skill in expressing their thoughts clearly or conscientiously. Students learn this skill best through practice as well as example. English courses teach grammar and writing skills that ensure children can use the words they need in the way those words should be used, and critical-thinking questions help them practice putting their thoughts and ideas into words. But communication is a skill that also needs to be reinforced daily. You can demonstrate it by showing your children how the things they say can be misunderstood and then helping them to clarify. You can also demonstrate by clarifying your own communication.

These learning skills are just the beginning, but they play a role in the development of some of the other 21st century skills. In a future blog post, we’ll discuss the remaining two categories of 21st century skills: literacy skill and life skills.