Christopher Kruger, M.A.

Christopher Kruger, M.A. teaches prekindergarten and kindergarten at Plato Academy, a PK-8 school that embraces the philosophy that children gain a more thorough understanding of a subject if they experience it holistically. This holistic approach to learning reflects Kruger’s own philosophy that the purpose of education is to create whole people—citizens of the world—who are ready to gather their own information and come to their own conclusions. He believes that teachers and parents should focus on asking great questions, rather than providing easy solutions or encouraging rote learning. Prior to his current position at Plato Academy, Kruger served as a first-grade teacher and third-grade math and science instructor at the Sherman School of Excellence in Chicago and as a Math+ lead tutor for the Academy for Urban School Leadership. He holds a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, a master of arts degree in the humanities from the University of Chicago and a master of arts degree in teaching from National Louis University.

Posts by Christopher Kruger, M.A.

Wrapping Up and Looking Ahead

posted by Chris Kruger So far, we’ve seen what it takes to prepare an exploration, a graphing progression, and a discussion about what kind of questions can be centered around an exploration. To wrap up our month, I’m going to extrapolate from a specific example to a general framework for explorations. A General Framework for […]

Pictographs and Pie Graphs

posted by Chris Kruger Pictographs and Pie Graphs I’m going to start this week with a frank statement: I messed up this part of the exploration. When I was planning the scope of the exploration, I intended for the class to spend two weeks on bar graphs and two weeks on pictographs. I knew that […]

Let’s Make Bar Graphs

posted by Chris Kruger Welcome back to week 2 of making graphs with kids! Today we explore rolling out an exploration and pushing students to think more deeply about a concept. Let’s Make Bar Graphs! Since I knew the class had only limited exposure to bar graphs going into this exploration, we spent the first […]

Graphing as an Exploration

posted by Chris Kruger The difference between an activity and an exploration Exploration based learning may be all the rage, but not every Pinterest post is an exploration. Explorations are intensive, thoughtful investigations into a concept, while an activity is a solitary project, isolated from any surrounding work. In my Pre-K/K classroom, the emphasis is […]