Use this tool to solve common problems you'll find in your gospel classroom. Select from the options below to find teaching techniques that will help you solve some of the most common problems in LDS gospel classrooms:
Where are the symbols or figurative language in these verses? What are the symbols trying to teach? Contemplate the symbols and figurative language.
Look For: Look for words that are symbols for something or someone.
Example: In the book of Revelation, John continually chooses to represent Christ as the conquering hero but symbolically calls him the "Lamb of God." Why this symbol and not an animal more powerful? Why is the Devil described as a Dragon? Looking at the symbols helps us to understand their characteristics and ways to defeat temptation. Normally we would fear a dragon more than a lamb, and that is what Satan wants. But when we realize that the seeming simpleness and purity of Christ's message of salvation, we can conquer even the most seemingly dangerous of foes.
During your lesson preparation, use reliable commentary like the Student Study Guide or Institute manual to help you understand difficult to understand symbols. The Student Study guide is full of great definitions for scripture terms and symbols, so check there for fast help.
(Adapted from Panning for Gold: Various Methods to Understand and Apply the Scriptures to Ourselves by Eric Bacon, Northwest Area Seminaries)
Great for: Lesson preparation
Class size: Any class size
Helps Students:
Prep Time:
Student Age: Any age
Equipment needed:
Assign students a passage or set of several verses to read. Have students imagine they are the prophet who would like to tweet the main idea of this passage or set of verses to his followers. What might he write? What will tell followers the most important information in fewer than 140 characters? After a few moments, share the tweets. Encourage them to write the best tweets in the margin of their scriptures.
You might even have students share the tweets online in real time on Twitter or as their morning streak for Snapchat.
Here is a worksheet you can use with scripture tweet:
http://www.mormonshare.com/lds-clipart/scripture-tweet-worksheet
Great for: Eliciting thoughtful responses, Getting the attention of uninterested students, Giving every person a turn, Helping shy students participate, Helping students find meaning in the scriptures, Lesson opener
Elder Richard G. Scott taught, "Never, and I mean never, give a lecture where there is no student participation. A 'talking head' is the weakest form of classroom instruction." (Address to CES Religious Educators, February 4, 2005)
Lecture has its place in teaching, but teacher presentation or lecture should not be your entire lesson. It should not, in my opinion, make up the majority of your lesson either. I learned a great thing from a veteran seminary teacher. He said, "A lot of times you hear teachers in the church say 'I learned more from this lesson than you will.' If you're learning more than the students you're doing it wrong." I love that. When we prepare lessons we're looking for ways to help students discover truths THEMSELVES, rather than pushing our own idea of what is important or cool on them.
Elder Bednar has said, "any faculty member at BYU-Idaho who does not believe that he or she can learn something from a student does not deserve to be a faculty member at BYU-Idaho." While Encouraging student participation, develop some positive Classroom management skills that you "let not all be spokesmen at once; but let one speak at a time and let all listen unto his sayings, that when all have spoken that all may be edified of all, and that every man may have an equal privilege." D&C 88:122
Read the same block with different eyes looking for different things, as if you were wearing a new pair of glasses with different lenses. A parent, a bishop, a missionary, a teenager, someone tired and depressed, someone newly married, someone needing repentance, someone who doesn't get along with their parents, etc.
For example, ask the students how this scripture verse might affect a person who has recently experienced a great loss. How might you read this differently if you were a teacher/parent/missionary? How will your students react to this verse based on what you know of their personalities and situations?
You can use this technique during your lesson preparation or during teaching, by asking students to read with different lenses.
(Adapted from Panning for Gold: Various Methods to Understand and Apply the Scriptures to Ourselves by Eric Bacon, Northwest Area Seminaries)
Jenny says: I have used this technique successfully with all ages of student, from child to elderly adult. Usually I cut out eyeglass shapes and write the role the person will be assuming on the glasses.
Have students read a set of scriptures or passage. Pick an
This exercise could be done as individuals, as groups, or as a class.
(Adapted from Panning for Gold: Various Methods to Understand and Apply the Scriptures to Ourselves by Eric Bacon, Northwest Area Seminaries)
Great for: Eliciting thoughtful responses, Helping students find meaning in the scriptures, Lesson opener, Giving every person a turn, Helping shy students participate, Getting the attention of uninterested students
Find a powerful footnote that helps explain, empower, or give insight to a verse in the block where you were reading.
Look For: Look for the little letters that precede a word that indicates a footnote.
Example:
28 But no man is possessor of aall things except he be bpurified and ccleansed from all sin.
(Adapted from Panning for Gold: Various Methods to Understand and Apply the Scriptures to Ourselves by Eric Bacon, Northwest Area Seminaries)
This is a familiar but underused teaching technique. When you invite students to role play, "The students' job is to shore up their friend, and they almost always bear testimony in the process -- almost without realizing it." (Becoming a Great Gospel Teacher, Eaton and Beecher, p 91)
"We've had our students play everything from missionaries to parents of troubled youth to concerned friends. The more realistic the situation, the better the exercise. It's best when student can dig deeply to explain and testify about gospel doctrines. Depending on the size of the class, we might first ask students to take turns role playing with each other and then try having one or tow students participate in role playing in front of the entire class.
Adapted from Becoming a Great Gospel Teacher, Eaton and Beecher, p 117
Paradoxes are two seemingly different things that are put together in a way that teaches a lesson or truth.
Look For: Look for a statement or joining of two things that teach a truth but seem to differ from each other.
Example: Matt. 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it..
(Sometimes the paradox is implied and we need to see how it is a paradox) ex. Jeremiah 23:24 "Can any man hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him?" The paradox is that men do try hide themselves from God and think they are fine. But the truth is if you try to hide anything from the Lord, you are still obvious to Him.
Discussing a paradox as a group may help students understand a difficult concept better. This is also a poetic form for giving emphasis to a principle. Watch for chiasm, parallelism, repetition, and amplification.
(Adapted from Panning for Gold: Various Methods to Understand and Apply the Scriptures to Ourselves by Eric Bacon, Northwest Area Seminaries)
Great for: Helping students find meaning in the scriptures, Lesson preparation
Class size: Any class size
Helps Students: SEARCH the scriptures or text
Prep Time:
Student Age: Any age
Equipment needed:
Jigsaw was first developed in the early 1970s by Elliot Aronson and his students at the University of Texas and the University of California.
To teach using the Jigsaw method, “divide a topic up into, say, four sub-topics. For example childhood diseases could be divided into mumps, measles, whooping cough and German measles. Alternatively students can be given four different key questions or ‘spectacles’ that require students to analyze the same materials from a different point of view.
For example all students are given the same information about the beliefs and policies of the Nazi party, and different groups look at this from the point of view of women, the working class, the middle class and the church.
"Divide students into four groups. The teacher chooses the groups and they should be mixed ability, experience, ethnicity gender etc. Don’t use friendship groups. Students may complain at first but will soon accept it if you are insistent.
"Each group studies one disease or question with the help of texts and worksheets etc. This is usually done in class time, though you might be able to adapt the method for students to do their learning outside of class time.
"The students now form new groups. Each new group is a ‘jigsaw’, with one student from each of the four original groups. Any students left over act as pairs in a full group. Each group now has one ‘expert’ in each of the four childhood diseases. (They may have two experts in one disease)
"The new group now completes an activity that requires them to Peer Teach each other about their disease, and requires them to cooperate with the rest of the group over a combined task that requires them to integrate the four topics. For example they could be asked to:
"Explain your disease to the rest of your new group, using the same headings as for the earlier tasks. (incubation time, mode of transmission etc)
- Cooperate to find three things all the diseases have in common
- Cooperate to find, for each of the four diseases, four unique characteristics.
- Design a leaflet on childhood diseases.
In your leaflet:
- Place the four diseases in order of:
- Severity of potential consequences
- Ease of protection
"You can do jigsaw with any group size and with any number of ‘subtopics’ if the following rules are followed: If you have N students and X subtopics then:
"You must start with X groups, (with N/X students in each group.) These then jigsaw to N/X groups (with X students in each group.) "Obviously N>X. Ideally N>2X so all groups have at least two students.
"Help! I have a remainder when I divide N by X.
"Doesn’t matter!. Let some subtopic groups be one student bigger than the others. Then pair students up in these larger sub-topic groups. For example if the remainder is two, you will have two subtopic groups that are one bigger than the others. Pair up two students in each of these groups and let them share the tasks. This pairing up strategy will always work, whatever the remainder. Alternatively, if the remainder is large, and you want to avoid pairing up too many students then consider the following: Again allow some of your sub-topic groups to be one larger than the others. Number off and form ‘teaching groups’ in the usual way. You will find that some of the teaching groups are one ‘expert’ short. You can take the place of these missing experts by visiting these groups in turn.
If you would like a fuller explanation of how to group with jigsaw you can email Geoff Petty through his website at http://GeoffPetty.com/.
(See the document 25 Ways for Teaching Without Talking at http://GeoffPetty.com/ and the Jigsaw Classroom at http://www.jigsaw.org/)
Great for: Avoiding disruptions, Building class unity, Eliciting thoughtful responses, Getting the attention of uninterested students, Giving every person a turn, Helping shy students participate, Helping students find meaning in the scriptures
Class size: 4 or more students
Think of ways to group your text to help you cover material effectively. Then WRITE VERSES ON THE BOARD to help students get through the material efficiently during your lesson.
EXAMPLE: On the easel I wrote the following for Deuteronomy 8:
Blessings of REMEMBERING
v 2
v3
v4
v5
Dangers of FORGETTING
v11
vv12-14
v17
v19
Here's what I had in my notes to help us find answers:
Blessings of REMEMBERING
v 2 - God led thee, proved thee
v3 - God humbled thee, fed thee, taught thee
v4 - clothes lasted
v5 - chastened thee
Dangers of FORGETTING
v11 - not keeping the commandment
vv12-14 - when you're satisfied, you be become prideful and forget miracles God has wrought for you
v17 - you'll think you did it yourself
v19 - forget God and perish
