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I am interested in getting your suggestions for effective and interesting teaching techniques in adult church classes.
FYI: I teach Relief Society. We have been advised in our stake about only using the manual and conference talks for our source material, to use minimal visual aids, and to make the lesson 50% discussion. Not 50% participation, but discussion.
Would especially like to hear: 1. what grabs your attention, 2. teaching methods that make you think, 3. the type of questions that motivate you to respond, 4. what helps you go home and implement anything from the lesson into your life
Thanks in advance for any insights you feel like sharing.
Posts: 507 | Registered: Jan 2006
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I think that discussion is vital to having a successful lesson....otherwise it is a talk.
Ask good thought provoking questions. Ask how the topic that you are teaching applies to life in 2011. I don't know how large your class is but think about the hundreds of years experience that are within the sisters sitting in the room. They have insights, experiences, etc to share.
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I think that the suggestions in Teaching: No Greater Call are wonderful. Those are so helpful and pertinent, IMO.
Posts: 3145 | Registered: Sep 2006
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The point of the RS/Priesthood lessons is to help people figure out how to apply the lessons in their lives. I think in most RS there is great value when sisters who have BTDT can bear testimony of how they made it work (as many as possible because what works for one doesn't for another).
Posts: 2177 | Registered: Feb 2005
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One thing that really grabs my attention is a personal experience. A good story. Especially if it is humorous, cute, or dramatic.
I was teaching a lesson on the Holy Ghost. One of the roles of the Holy Ghost is to warn people. Everyone has heard stories about pioneers being prompted to move their oxen, and then lightning struck the tree they were under. Well, I told a story about my dad. He was a construction worker, and was on a big job where they were supposed to wear their hard hats. Nobody really wore them much though, unless the inspector was expected, and back in those days it wasn't that big a deal. But one morning as he was putting on his nail apron, he saw his hard hat hanging there and felt prompted to put it on. Several hours later, he heard a yell from someone up above him, and looked up to see a huge steel beam headed right for him. He was almost able to get out of the way, but not quite. The beam pinned his head to the wall. (Here's where I put my head against the wall and stuck my hand on the other side of my head while I talked about how many men it took to move the beam.) If he hadn't been wearing that hard hat...
Everyone in the class was paying attention. Wide-eyed is really sometimes a literal description.
Posts: 460 | Registered: Oct 2010
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To generate discussion, you have to ask questions of the class. You need to have confidence in the class to allow the discussion to go where it will, but confidence in yourself to be able to head it away from politics/speculation/hobby horses to a gospel-centred draught of the waters of life. Easy peasy.
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You also need to have the patience to wait for someone to answer a question you pose, and not move on too quickly. This is the hard part for me. Silence in a classroom makes me antsy.
Posts: 3862 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Especially with the Gopsel Principle manual I like to ask questions about what the things really mean. Everyone knows the answers to basic questions. I want people to not only know the answers but to really understand what it means in real life, in everyday situations.
Most sisters like it very much. Some don't. Because they've thought to be so good and now they realize they may have somethings to improve on. That's how they've put it themselves. It's not that I point out things like that or want people to feel that way, but I want them to really understand so that they can really aply.
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The key to more/better discussions is to give the sisters the general info ahead of time. Remind them what the lesson will be the week before if it is in the Gospel Principle manual or if it a TFOT let them know which General Conference talk(s) will be covered. Maybe even have copies of the talk(s) available the week before for the sisters to take home to read and highlight the areas they feel impressed about.
In my current stake the bishops are suppose to choose the talks for TFOT every month, but in my ward whoever is teaching the lesson chooses. It is very frustrating because in priesthood hubby would get one lesson while in RS I'd get something completely different. And they do not let us know ahead of time which talk(s) the lesson will be on. Most of the time the teacher just reads the talk, asks a couple of questions and then quickly moves on so she can finish reading the talk before time runs out!!!
Before you start teaching put up a list of potential questions/discussion jumping off points that you as a teacher felt impressed about. By putting up the questions for the sisters to see it gives them time to think and remember what in the lesson material they were drawn to. Also, put up all scripture references, even the ones you hand out to be read by someone. Sometimes a particular scripture may be special to a sister and she may have a comment/insight that she could/would share if she knew it was in context of the lesson.
Posts: 424 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:You also need to have the patience to wait for someone to answer a question you pose, and not move on too quickly. This is the hard part for me. Silence in a classroom makes me antsy.
This is critical. I cringe when a teacher (especially in youth classes) asks a question and then doesn't give them a chance to answer! It is a skill, to be sure, but once you learn it...it makes such a difference to the content and particpation of the lesson, you never forget.
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quote: You also need to have the patience to wait for someone to answer a question you pose, and not move on too quickly. This is the hard part for me. Silence in a classroom makes me antsy.
It helps if you ask one or 2 people ahead of time to think about the question and then ask them to answer it first. When people hear someone else answering the question it helps things to come up in their mind.
If you have the opportunity to go to Education Week check out Kevin Miller. Sometimes he teaches an adult teaching class that is excellent. Here is a paper he gives out in class. It may not help much since it just gives the highlights of each of the things he covers. If you see something you would like to know more about ask and I will see if I can explain it.
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What's the 10-3 rule that he mentions in the paper? (btw, great resource! He must be a great teacher at Education Week. )
Posts: 2712 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Before reading out a scripture or quote, ask the question or tell them what to look for. There is nothing worse than having something read out loud and THEN getting the question. I usually have forgotten what had just been read!
Posts: 340 | Registered: May 2005
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In order to have good discussions in your class, you need to cultivate a culture of discussion. If the class isn't used to participating much, it will take a little time to re-train them, so be patient with that.
I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestion of giving people time to respond and not being afraid of silence. If the silence does get to be too much, you can simply repeat the question, or reword it. That is one way you can avoid the awkwardness without moving on, but sometimes it really is best to just hold your peace while people are thinking.
Another important point about questions is to ask "good" questions rather than "bad" questions. By that I mean, don't ask questions that everyone knows the answer to (like "what are the first four principles and ordinances of the gospel?"). People are very reluctant to answer that kind of question. Also avoid questions that have only one specific right answer, especially where the answer is some rather obscure fact. People don't want to answer those questions because they fear being wrong, or they fear looking like a know-it-all.
"Good" questions include open ended questions ("how do you apply this principle in your life?" or "why do you think the Lord give us this commandment? Why is important to us?"). List are good ("what are some things you can do as a mother to strengthen your children's testimonies?"). The thing about list questions is that there are lots of answers, so you can get lots of responses.
An important part of establishing a culture of discussion in the classroom is validating the responses you get. Never give someone an outright rejection for their reply, because that will have a chilling effect on everyone. Sometimes it takes a LOT of quick thinking to come up with something positive you can say about some of the comments you will get, but this is an important skill to develop.
As has already been said, I think the best lessons are about how we apply whatever principles are in the lesson to our lives. Teachers in the church need to realize that unless they are teaching the Sunbeams, the class has already been taught the same lesson multiple times. I don't think the model of the teacher possessing knowledge and dispensing that knowledge to the class is a very good model for lessons in the church. The model of leading a discussion and getting lots of people to share their own insights and experiences is a better fit. I can tell that this is what you are shooting for, Annie, so I expect you will be successful over time.
My wife likes to be real when she teaches--meaning that she doesn't pretend to have it all together and freely admits to things that she struggles with. She has received lots of feedback over the years that people, especially sisters, really appreciate that. It's ok, and even helpful, to acknowledge that we live in the real world, not the ideal world. That does help people feel safe to have more open discussion, which is much more useful for everyone there than the simple regurgitation of how things should be. (Note that I'm not saying we shouldn't teach the ideal--we definitely should. I'm just saying the best lessons I've attended spend time addressing the reality that we all fall short of the ideal, and discussing ways to deal with that.)
One last thing--if you missed the worldwide training broadcast about teaching, you really need to read or watch it. The proceedings of that training are available in the June 2007 Ensign. Make sure you don't miss Elder Holland's discussion on Teaching and Learning in the Church. He models how to have a good discussion, and he teaches some very important things on the topic.
Posts: 674 | Registered: May 2003
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quote: What's the 10-3 rule that he mentions in the paper? (btw, great resource! He must be a great teacher at Education Week
I'm mostly quoting this to remind myself to come back to this. I'll have to look it up in my notes.
He was a great teacher. He taught us in the same way that he was teaching us to teach. It was amazing to me because he would talk and then he showed us what he was talking about by doing it with us.
I actually took the set of classes twice. I took it the first year I was there, but I missed the first day. I remember feeling so inspired by it and it helped when I was subbing in RS. Then that year someone on my other message board for suggestion on teaching in RS or SS. I gave some of the suggestions that I had learned in the class. Another person posted and said we shouldn't be that - that we should be teaching by the Spirit.
I was grateful to take the class again because I had missed something the first time around. I knew he had told us to not make this a dog and pny show, but to use the Spirit in what we would do. This time I heard him talk about the Savior used these different methods - that HE was a master teacher. I appreciated that he said teaching doesn't have to be dry to be siritual. The Savior wasn't and He was varied in his teaching, so why should we think we should always sit there and lecture in the classroom? (He differentiated the classroom from Sacrament Meeting talks as well).
Posts: 4947 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Everyone knows the answers to basic questions.
I truly do not mean to to pick on Cook, and I apologize in advance if this comes out in a way that offends anyone. The quoted comment drives me crazy because I hear this on a weekly basis in both my RS meetings and in my Wednesday morning scripture study class. The teacher asks a question, she's greeted with silence, either because we're thinking or we don't want to be the first to respond, and she replies with "come on, you all know this". Or she starts a point of discussion by saying "As you all know..." or a similar phrase.
To someone born in the Church, the teacher's question may seem basic and obvious and easy to answer, but to a convert like me, this is all still pretty new. Or worse, what if you have a non-member visitor or investigator in the class who really has no prior exposure? I'm not as raw with the Gospel Principles manual thanks to the investigator classes, but I don't feel like I *know* the answers. I have never read the New Testament before now and I certainly had never read the Book of Mormon (last year's Weds class) or Doctrine and Covenants (this year's subject matter) before I started investigating in May 2009. And I only read what little bit of the Old Testament that I had because my Freshman year English teacher was a former nun who managed to slip it under the radar as a work of literature and then actively worked to convert all of us in my class (and probably others).
This "everyone knows it" mindset can easily cause someone to feel like an outsider and unwelcome if they honestly don't know for any reason.
Posts: 1100 | Registered: Aug 2009
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No worries. What I meant more was that it's the attitude most people in class have - I know this all, why do you even ask the question like that. I would never allow myself to say it outloud - as you all know, or don't you know. But you can tell it's the listener's who feel that way and don't want participate because they feel they have nothing to gain - they would, of course, had they not that attitude.
But I think it's even more important with new members, less actives and visitors to open up the concepts and teachings what they really mean in real life. It's easier to do it when you know what it means really and you don't just hear phrases that may be new to you.
Posts: 801 | Registered: Aug 2007
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I have really appreciated the comments here. Every single one had something for me to ponder on. From your suggestions I also feel more confident that I have been pursuing the right path.
The ideas presented have also been good reminders of areas I need to develop more. I wasn't involved in teaching when the broadcast was done, so I am definitely going to watch Elder Holland ... and reread Teaching No Greater Call ... and wait a little longer for responses when I ask questions ... formulate some better questions with how things relate to today ... and that's just for starters.
Yungmom, I am also interested in the what the 10-3 rule is.
Again, thank you one and all. I always enjoy the varied responses and perspectives I gain from reading this board.
Posts: 507 | Registered: Jan 2006
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My pet peeve is when people begin the class by putting themselves down (not prepared, not a good teacher, really terrible at this particular topic, etc.). I think it offends the Spirit to start off with such negativity. The class isn't about the teacher's skills anyway. Lessons always seem to go more smoothly when the teacher either just jumps into the topic or mentions their desire for the Spirit to guide the lesson.
Posts: 119 | Registered: Nov 2006
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What I found frustrating in a recent gospel doctrine class is the instructor didn't really seem to listen to thoughts shared. For instance he would be looking at his paper. Also a couple of people shared some good ideas and he didn't give much attention to their idea.
What I love is when instructors keep on the gospel path and share relevant ideas/talks (ie including conference talks in GD to make it more applicable to modern times.) I also like it when the teachers give you good questions to think about, even if those aren't questions answered in class. My favorite GD teachers of all time were a married couple who taught at different times, (ie one released then a short time later the other called). They used wonderful questions and applied conf talks and personal life experiences at times.
For RS: biggest frustration is when occasionally teachers spend the majority of the time talking about herself, i've seen this a couple times. Sometimes it has been where the teacher is almost reaching out to the sisters for answers.
Like was said above, it is good to "keep it real". Just in so doing, as a general rule and not to you personally, be sure this doesn't include sharing things that are too personal about your spouse. There is a difference between sharing of yourself and your struggles vs sharing too much about things that might embarass or harm your spouse.
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