BJU Press Writer

How to Plan Your School Year

August 13, 2015 by BJU Press Writer

“Planning your work and working your plan” helps with more than scheduling your errands—it can make a big difference in organizing your teaching too. Whether you homeschool your children or teach a classroom of students, you probably begin each school year armed with a plan. It’s much easier to complete the different subjects and lessons when you have a plan to follow.

What should you consider when creating next year’s academic road map? Here are two ideas to get you started.

1. Start at the beginning.

A great place to start planning your lessons is by looking at the beginning of your textbooks. Review the table of contents in each textbook to see how it is paced and when concepts are presented. You’ll also want to see if your curriculum provides any lesson objectives or goals. Some of our BJU Press textbooks present the goals or objectives at the beginning of the textbook and others at the beginning of each chapter. Make sure to take good notes on what you find and consult your school calendar—you don’t want to start a harder concept right before a break.

2. Personalize to meet your student’s needs.

To tailor your plan, check your students’ test scores. Test scores are incredibly useful for showing strengths and weaknesses, letting you know what to spend more or less time on when teaching.

The percentile ranks and stanines at the top of the score report show your student’s overall ranking in a subject or as a whole.
The lower half of the score report shows a close-up of your student’s performance with specific skills. Check the number of questions that were available for each skill, and how many your student attempted. Missing 25% of only four questions means your student missed one question; missing 25% on a section of twelve questions would be more significant.

Tip—Don’t be afraid to ask for help. If you’re not sure what the test scores mean, need help pinpointing a possible weakness, or can’t find your test scores, talk to your achievement test provider. Our Testing & Evaluation service provides customers with unlimited access to test score reports, and staff members are happy to answer questions or consult on score results. Your test provider may offer the same service, so be sure to ask.

Apply your findings

For your student’s strengths, it’s okay to move more quickly through new material, include projects that encourage your student to apply his knowledge, or do a bit of both. For his weaknesses, it’s best to plan on spending more time reviewing old concepts and explaining new ones.

How do you usually plan for the school year?

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Joanna received her BA and MA from BJU and worked at BJU Press Testing & Evaluation for over 19 years. She currently edits elementary science materials for BJU Press.

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Gaining Joy

August 4, 2015 by BJU Press Writer

What is joy?

In his book Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life, C. S. Lewis characterizes joy as an unexpected, elevated emotion that comes over you at times when you least expect it. Not a bad description, but there may be even more to it. The dictionary describes joy as “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” But then it muddles the issue a bit by speaking of “tears of joy.” So joy is something that makes you so happy that you . . . cry?

Well, yes, that’s sometimes the case. I remember the first time I had that experience. I was five or six years old, and my mom had been in the hospital for more than a week. I was staying at my grandmother’s house, and one afternoon suddenly there was Mom, home from the hospital! My brother and I ran to her and hugged her, and all of a sudden all three of us were crying. A very confusing moment for a young boy! So my brother and I covered our embarrassment in a typically masculine way. Each of us pointed at the other and laughed at him.

Joy—an elevated emotion, a feeling of great pleasure and happiness that can come over you when you least expect it.

What does joy have to do with education?

Let’s skip forward a few years . . . I’m now in college, and the professor in my life science class is giving a lecture on DNA and RNA and how DNA is replicated. I remember sitting there completely lost and very downhearted. I could usually pick things up pretty quickly, but this concept had me very confused.

A big part of my problem was that I hadn’t done the assigned reading for that day. I remember after class taking my big fat college science textbook to the campus library, finding a study carrel way out of the traffic pattern, and burying myself in the chapter on DNA replication. I was totally absorbed in this confusing topic—I was determined to understand how it worked.

As I read the chapter, what happened? It all unfolded before my eyes. I understood how the DNA strand unzipped, what the RNA did, and how the whole process worked. “I get this! I get this!”

Although I couldn’t explain DNA replication to you today, over thirty years later, my point is that what I experienced that afternoon was unquestionably joy! I felt so much joy that I still remember that afternoon today.

No doubt you’ve had similar experiences with your children. Such moments are rare jewels. As you work through the daily challenges of homeschooling, treasure those moments when your child gains knowledge . . . when your child gains wisdom . . . and when you and your child experience a feeling of great pleasure and happiness that comes over you when you least expect it.

“I get this! I get this!” That’s joy!

This post is part of our series highlighting our 2015 theme Gaining Wisdom and Knowledge and Joy. Steve serves as director of content development for BJU Press. He and his wife are the parents of five adult children. They homeschooled for over ten years.

Gaining Knowledge

July 7, 2015 by BJU Press Writer

With a runner on first base and only one out, a ground ball is hit to the shortstop. Where does the shortstop make a play—first base or second base? How does a person know the best answer to this baseball question? A ball player learns the game by practicing, asking questions, observing games in person or on TV, listening to the coach, and playing the game. Finding answers to baseball questions illustrates how we learn facts and find answers to questions about a particular academic subject; we find them in the process of gaining knowledge.

Knowledge is gained through personal and vicarious experiences and through studying various sources. A student learns best when his educational experiences are age appropriate, developmentally suitable, purposeful by design, and regularly evaluated. Gaining knowledge is not just for the sake of having knowledge. It is the means to a much greater end—glorifying God in whatever task He has placed before the student.

Methods and Knowledge

The baseball player needs a coach to present the “how-tos” of the game. Just as in baseball, the student needs a teacher to present the academic subject in such a way that the facts are understood and learned. However, the student needs to do much more than just accumulate memorized facts. The student needs to gain knowledge by way of understanding and remembering those facts with an emphasis on analyzing and appying them so that he can evaluate and create. How does a teacher know the student is truly learning? By giving a student opportunities to demonstrate his knowledge through formal and informal questioning, individual and group projects, academic tests utilizing many different types of questions, and presentations.

Curriculum and Knowledge

As a baseball player has rules and plays to learn, a student has concepts and facts to learn. Gaining knowledge takes place best with a curriculum that blends factual knowledge and critical thinking skills with a biblical worldview. Textbooks are an essential part of gaining factual knowledge. However, all textbooks are not created equal. To be most effective in facilitating knowledge acquisition, the textbook’s worldview, methods of teaching, depth of content, and literary quality should promote critical and creative thinking that is foundationally biblical.

Proverbs 18:15 says, “The heart of the prudent getteth knowledge; and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge.” The discerning student should always be ready to pursue and expand his knowledge and to learn more in order to have a greater opportunity to glorify God in following His leading.

This post is part of our ongoing series highlighting our 2015 theme Gaining Wisdom and Knowledge and Joy. Jeff has served in local church ministry, secondary education, and higher education for more than thirty years. Jeff holds a doctorate in education and is the senior manager of academic integrity at BJU Press. He and his wife have three children, five grandchildren, and two goldendoodles.

Benefits of Reading Aloud to Your Children

June 4, 2015 by BJU Press Writer

As I look back over my childhood, I’m thankful that many children’s books play an important role in my memories.

I can get quite nostalgic thinking about curling up next to Mom on the couch—back when my feet couldn’t reach the floor—and hearing her read aloud. She was (and still is) a great actress, and the books came alive in my mind over and over again.

Some of my favorite books are still easily available: Blueberries for Sal, The Snowy Day, The Story about Ping, Caps for Sale, Harry the Dirty Dog, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel . . . and the list could go on.

What made those books so special? I think their beauty lies in their simplicity. And attaining simplicity is more difficult than it might seem!

What do I mean by this? I mean that a book for children must intrigue the child by hooking him into a situation to which he can relate. It may or may not be something he has actually experienced, but it should be something he can imagine happening to him.

What if my mom and I were picking blueberries and I saw a bear?

What if I woke up one morning and saw that the street outside was covered with beautiful, clean snow?

What if I were a little duck that got distracted and wandered away from the group . . . and then the boat left me?

Or it may be something completely outside his experience—but if he can enjoy the humor or sense the suspense, he will love it and want to hear it over and over.

Where did all those caps go while that man was sleeping?

What if the family doesn’t figure out that the dirty dog at their doorstep is actually their Harry?

What if Mike and Mary Anne can’t dig that basement in just one day?

Learning to love those read-alouds as a youngster contributed to my ongoing love of reading throughout life. As I grew older, I developed a similar love for The Borrowers, for My Friend Flicka, for Misty of Chincoteague. . . . Again, the list could go on and on!

I encourage you to take some time out of your busy homeschooling schedule to read aloud to your children. Books that tell intriguing stories but also promote character traits that you’d like to encourage can have lifelong effects. And they don’t have to be just the “old” classics either! Include some new(er) classics in your repertoire—such as these titles:

My kids have all grown past the age where they’re interested in those early read-aloud stories. But that’s OK. One of these days when the grandkids come along, they’ll be hearing about Harry and Ping and Mike and Mary Anne . . . and cap-stealing monkeys!

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Steve serves as director of content development for BJU Press. He and his wife are the parents of five adult children. They homeschooled for over ten years.

Gaining Wisdom

June 2, 2015 by BJU Press Writer

There was a time when people thought an educated person was someone with lots of information. But information is easy for everyone these days, too easy. Most people struggle to finish reading a post like this one because they know they’re just clicks away from the latest post about their favorite celebrity. (Thankfully, you’re not like most people!) Everyone has information. But most people still lack something that only education—true education—can give.

What is that something?

It’s the ability to look at information and see it in proper perspective. It’s the ability to sift through the piles of data that all of us slog through and discern what’s true and what’s really important. And it’s the ability to know how to take what is most important and put it to use so that success—lasting, satisfying success—is achieved. It’s wisdom.

How do you get something as precious as wisdom?

Proverbs has the answer: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).

Fear? Modern secular education tells us to abandon our fears. Learning is possible, we are told, only if we are willing to call everything into question—our sexuality, our beliefs about where we came from, our beliefs about God. But such advice is a lie. The wise person has come to accept that some questions need not to be asked. He knows that God is to be feared. This doesn’t mean that the wise man runs away from God in terror. But it does mean he takes God seriously.

What else does wisdom require?

Proverbs says that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. You can’t be wise without fearing God, but you can’t be wise without a lot of other things too.

Anyone who would be wise must also be a learner, a careful observer, a student. With the fear of God firmly in his heart, a person needs to study the world all around. He cannot make wise decisions unless he has a great deal to be wise with. So he’ll have to know about science, math, language arts, and social studies.

But he’ll have to know about these from the perspective that only the fear of the Lord can provide. He’ll need to understand that science is a powerful tool for ruling over God’s world under God’s greater rule over him. He will have to see math as a way to model God’s world for God’s purposes. He’ll need to understand that human communication is the result of humans having been made in God’s image and therefore it must be used to imitate God’s character and deeds. And he’ll have to learn about society with the understanding that government exists to ensure justice—justice on God’s own terms.

Where does a person develop this kind of understanding?

All the way through life in whatever situation he finds himself. But the best way to begin is through education. Not just any education, of course. A Christian education. An environment where Christian parents, students, and textbooks all work together to produce something far more profound and useful than mere information.

This post is part of our series highlighting our 2015 theme Gaining Wisdom and Knowledge and Joy. Bryan has worked in Christian education for over twenty-five years. Since 2003, he has served at BJU Press as the senior manager for biblical worldview formation. He and his wife have six children.