Teaching and Learning
Teaching and learning at Cincinnati Country Day School is dynamic, rooted in academic excellence while remaining responsive to student needs and shifting 21st-century demands. We believe that, in order to thrive to potential, every child must be known and nurtured. That level of intimacy is dependent on teachers who can adapt to a variety of learning needs and styles, as well as on learners who are engaged in expanding their minds through a broad range of approaches.
Teaching
Our school has developed a remarkable faculty program, Pedagogical Development, to utilize the collaborative power of our teachers. The program asks the faculty to embark yearly in shared, sustained work to improve their success with our students.
The school has designated four areas of focus for this program—those areas of teaching and learning essential to student success:
- assessment
- curriculum-based character development
- developmentally-appropriate skill-building
- learning styles
Our teachers choose an area of focus, and, after reading what experts have to say on the subject, begin a year-long journey into collaborative discussion, classroom implementation, and reflection. This trek uses as its underpinning our remarkable technology, which both aids in the collaboration and serves as content for part of the term of study.
The result of the program is a faculty that is informed, that has learned from each other, and that is in constant pursuit of making the classroom experience an effective and enjoyable one. To learn more about the program, please visit the pedagogical development site generated for our teachers.
Learning
The product of our faculty’s dedication to effective teaching is evident in the exciting learning happening everywhere on our campus. Here are just a few of the many ways students might be learning on any given day:
- recording themselves reading poetry as a first approach to decoding
- serving as “junior naturalists” in the sixth grade, demonstrating what they know by teaching basic botany to kindergarteners and first graders
- sharing with their teacher step-by-step linear equation solutions in real time via DyKnow software and tablet pc “digital ink”
- creating pin-hole cameras and shooting portraits with them
- scouring primary sources to critique the historical authenticity of the video game “Rome Total War”
- narrating a self-created photo slide show to demonstrate newly acquired French or Spanish vocabulary
At CCDS, learning by both students and faculty happens inside and outside the classroom, and we celebrate, nurture, and encourage creative thinking, individual excellence, and constructive collaboration.
