Welcome back to a new school year! We are so excited to have students and teachers back in the buildings. This year, our department is using the new Jordan District Portrait of a Graduate as our professional development themes for each month. August is a big introduction to the Portrait and each month we will dive into deeper into each trait with more detail.
The new Portrait of a Graduate in Jordan School District outlines the essential skills and characteristics that students should develop to succeed beyond their K-12 education. These traits include:
- Curious Thinkers
- Creative Problem Solvers
- Engaged Citizens
- Empathetic Communicators
- Resilient Lifelong Learners
- Responsible Teammates
The district believes that academic excellence alone is not enough; students must also cultivate these broader skills to thrive in any career path they choose. Digital tools, like Adobe Express, can play a pivotal role in helping students develop these traits. For example, in the following table are a couple of ideas of how you could use Adobe Express to practice some of these essential traits in the JSD Portrait of a Graduate.
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| Engaged Citizen: Use Adobe Express to have students create Public Service Announcements about an issue important to their community. | Curious Thinker: Use Adobe Express to create a mini-documentary to ask questions about the world around us. |
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| Curious Thinker: Create interactive PDFs with Adobe Acrobat to demonstrate student learning and curiosity. | Empathetic Communicator: Students can craft digital storytelling projects that share personal narratives or highlight diverse cultural experiences. |
Check back each month as we dive deeper into these characteristics and all the many ways we can use our Big 6 tools to help our students become better prepared to enter the 21st century world.