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Thursday, December 10, 2015

What Our Students Are Learning - It's More Than Facts

Merry Christmas! The end of the semester is quickly approaching with just one week of school left, so I thought this would be a great time to take a look at some of the fantastic things our students have done over the semester.

In my first blog post I highlighted 21st Century Kingdom Skills. Let’s take a look at how our students are using these skills that have become central to our student development this year.


· Faithfulness: Joshua 24:14

· Collaboration: Ephesians 4:2

· Responsibility: Galatians 6:5

· Self Motivation: Hebrews 12:1

· Information, Technology, and Media Literacy: 1 Timothy 4: 11-14

· Critical Thinking & Problem Solving: Colossians 2:8



What about faith-formation and faithfulness?

Coach Crawford has gotten to know a family of four that lives in Cashion who is struggling. The family is being supported by one of the children, who is in high school, because their mother has been severely injured. Their house is dilapidated and has a trailer on the property. They have to wash clothes outside in a shed. Coach Crawford, in partnership with Memorial Road Church of Christ, is fixing their trailer up so they can move out of the house and into the trailer. Then, they plan on fixing the house up so they can rent out the trailer to provide more income.

Recently, OCA students cleaned out flower beds, tore down drywall and paneling, removed cabinets, picked up trash, raked the yard, cut dead tree branches down, and shoveled and cleaned sidewalks. To end the day our OCA students prayed over the family! It is wonderful to see our students' faith in action!

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What about collaborating to help our world?


OCA has robotics! Did you know our robotics team received 2nd place in their very first competition! They competed in a competition through a national organization called First Robotics. The competition challenged the builders to create a robot that could help with the global trash epidemic.

Our students did a tremendous job creating a robot to help with the trash problem we are having globally. Hopefully, through this experience they learned about science and engineering, but more importantly, they learned that through the skills they have they can play a part in redeeming the world.

One of the OCA Robotics team members, Christian Wood said, “I learned a lot about teamwork, technology, and about protecting the environment. This is the world that God gave us and we should do our best to protect it.”



What about responsibility?


With the hopes of teaching important skills and instilling life principles, Mrs. Dunagan and Mrs. Ruff’s class are taking on the challenge of growing wheat. On October 6 they started with two raised flower beds and a bag of dusting wheat on our playground. They cleaned out the beds, broke up the soil, and used a yardstick to carefully measure out each row for planting. The yardstick was also used to help them dig a straight line for their seeds. The hope was that if they continued to use the same yardstick and the same unit of measurement that the kids would become familiar with the process.

Each child spread their own seeds and watered them. Mrs. Dunagan said, “Throughout this waiting period we talked about patience and faith during times of waiting. Our kids would check their wheat every day at recess. The first signs of a sprout the kids knew right away and were ecstatic.”

Once the wheat began to grow they started measuring the wheat using centimeters. The first measurements were on October 12th and the wheat was three centimeters tall. After measuring we graphed the growth of our wheat on our AITC bulletin board. The students use the same ruler each time and graph the growth themselves. They also write the length and the date we measured. To finish off the project they will be entering their findings into the state fair next year.

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What about self-motivation?

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I am sure most of you heard we were given a 3D printer by one of our wonderful alumni. Our students have really enjoyed playing with it and seeing what they could create. One of our students, KJ Hazelip, created his own iphone case using the 3D printer. He designed it and printed it.

The first case he attempted to make, which was his first 3D print ever, did not turn out very well. So, he made some changes to his design and printed another, and that didn’t come out to his liking. Through his own self-motivation he spent hours perfecting it. In his third print he got it right.

“I didn’t want to quit on my first try,” KJ said. “I was really motivated to get it right. The first time I forgot to print out the ear hole, the second time the build plate was unlevel, and the third time was perfect. I was surprised by how easy the printer was to use. At my previous school we got to play with 3D design software but we never had the opportunity to print something!”


What about real-life application and problem solving through technology?

Several of our technology club students were given a real-life task by the Oklahoma State Highway Patrol this semester. Their goal was to fix Bobby the Safety Boat, a fully-functional robot that helps teach boat safety.
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The challenge our students had was that Bobby the Safety Boat was not operating. Thanks to some of our OCA students and our Systems Administrator, Mr. St. Aubin, it looks like Bobby the boat is fully repaired. They had to replace the rectifier diode (5400 1/5400 50v 3A 1.2v forward voltage) with rectifier diode (HER605G 50v 6A 1.3v forward voltage) on the 2nd voltage regulator. The Turnigy 9x v1 with OpenTX firmware to solve some issues and add new features like motor disarm. They also installed a new light bar on the top for a more modern look. Colton Britt says, “I feel like we learned a lot about electrical engineering. Also, it was fun seeing how we could recycle parts from an old PC computer to fix the boat.”



What about creativity?

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Mrs. Loomis had one particular student shine with creativity during her make-an-instrument project! The objective was for students to identify the families of instruments in multiple ways. This project was a way to help the students better understand the instrument families they had been studying over the previous weeks and as a way to feature their creativity and musicality. Fourth grader Britt Bailey created a french horn out of electrical conduit and a funnel! How creative is this?!








What about making academics relevant?

How about math class? What are we doing in math that is fun, engaging, and real-life application? Well, just this week our junior high math class has done a fun project.

The objective of the project is to use ratios and proportions to make a scale model of a famous landmark. This project was split into three phases. First, they were asked to choose a famous landmark and research the actual dimensions of the building/landmark. Second, the students had to pick a scale for their drawing/model (¼ in: 1 ft, 1/16 in: 1 ft, or 1/32 in: 1 ft) and they were asked to draw the schematics for the building/landmark. They needed a minimum of 2 schematic drawings, one of the elevation and one from overhead. Thirdly, they were asked to construct a scale model of their landmark/building out of “gingerbread.”

Here is an example from London, a sixth-grade student. Her project was Big Ben clock tower located in London. Great job!

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I had so many stories and examples I could have shared from our amazing students this semester. There are too many great things happening here to record in one place! If you have additional stories that you would like to share, make sure to add them to the comment section below. I love hearing more stories about ways that your students are learning how to live a more full and purposeful life through OCA’s education. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season!