Great For: Helping Shy Students Participate

These teaching techniques will help you encourage participation from shy students.

December 31, 2012
Ask a Friend

The purpose of this activity is to help students learn that they have the skills and tools to answer other's questions. They also learn they can turn their friends for help with gospel questions. After giving students something to read together, ask every one to write down a question about the passage. Instruct students that […]

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December 31, 2012
Find the One-Liner

This technique is great for scriptures that have multiple great phrases of advice or wisdom, but that don't require a whole lot of discussion to understand. Either have students go in order through a passage, or write scripture references on the board and use Hey There Delilah or Cold-calling to have random students read verses. […]

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December 31, 2012
What's the Headline?

You can do this as a group activity or as an individual activity. I generally do it as a group activity. Assign students a passage to read. Have students imagine they are newspaper reporters who are going to write a headline for this passage. What will they write? What headline will tell your readers the […]

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December 31, 2012
Zones and Seating Charts

I learned this technique from Deann, who learned it from The Famous Linda D: When you have a large class of youth, you will need a seating chart to help behavior issues. It's not mean -- it's positioning everyone so they can participate constructively. Daniel Roma teaches Seminary teachers that f you have more than […]

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December 31, 2012
Gospel Cartoonist

Give each student a pencil and piece of paper. Tell your students that they will be cartoonists and should draw a cartoon of the story you are about to read aloud. Stick figures are perfectly okay -- this is not about drawing skill, but it's about picking out the most important details they hear from […]

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December 31, 2012
Write a poem

We have done this a couple of times in my Seminary class, and it is always so fun! Use this to review material you've already covered or material that students already know very well. In our class, this ends up very silly, so it's best done at the very beginning or very end of class. […]

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December 31, 2012
Use Your Students

Do your best to stay aware of the things your students are doing as service projects or at school. Find out about the things they are doing right, and ask them to share their experiences during class. Be specific with your instructions, and be prepared to ask the students questions to help them with their […]

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December 31, 2012
Member/Nonmember

I use this technique when teaching a topic significant to missionary teaching, like the plan of salvation or baptism. AFTER some instruction on a scripture passage or gospel principle, students are assigned into groups of three. Students read the same passage of scripture together as if this was a real missionary lesson. One person is […]

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December 31, 2012
Student presents

Before class, invite a student to prepare a short talk or devotional about a topic or scripture passage. You should give the student clear instructions about what you're looking for in the talk. For example, don't just assign a student to read Moses 7:18 and give a talk on it. Explain to the student that […]

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December 31, 2012
Everybody Writes

I learned this extremely versatile teaching technique from Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov. Basically, you assign a writing prompt. Everyone writes the answer. Then, as many people as you choose are invited to share. Sometimes I have each person share their written response. Other times, when there's a big group, I assign a […]

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