each the biblet o how t how to teach the bible …...information so students don’t get frustrated...

How to Teach the Bible

Transcript - HR202 How to Teach the Bible © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

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LESSON 04 of 04HR202

Getting Students Involved

How to Teach the Bible

Why We Use Interactive Learning

We use interactive learning to help students engage more fully with the material we are studying. When students participate, the focus of action moves from what the teacher is doing to what students are doing during the Bible-study session. Most of us use lectures to some extent to provide information to students. That process plays a vital role in a study session and students usually do participate by taking notes and asking questions. But there are ways to increase students’ participation and engagement with the Bible passages we study.

Research data supports the idea that students learn more when they actively engage with the material they’re trying to learn. That’s why we use discussion, practice, application, debate, case study, and other active learning methods to help students mentally manipulate and interact with information.

Suppose, for instance, that you’re studying Ephesians 5 and come to Paul’s instructions on marriage. You can tell students what that passage is about and help them understand its meaning. But you help your students gain a deeper understanding of that passage if you design a learning experience where they have to understand it well enough to apply it to a real situation. For instance, you could break your class into two-person teams and pose a question like, “If a friend asked you what the Bible teaches about marriage, how would you use Ephesians 5 in your explanation?” One student answers the question and the other critiques the answer. Then they study the passage together in more detail to create a “best” answer. Finally ask each team to read their best answer to the class and use the passage to evaluate each answer’s strengths and weaknesses.

The point of exercises like this is not necessarily to create the world’s best answers to the questions, but to force students to

Sid Buzzell, PhDExperience: Academic Dean, Christian

University GlobalNet



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engage in the Bible passage. By doing so, they will identify concepts they didn’t understand, raise new questions to discuss and wrestle with, and will have much greater confidence in their own understanding of and ability to use the Bible passage we “taught” them because they participated in discovering what it means.

We can also incorporate a simple debate when teaching confusing or controversial passages. As we do our own study of the passage, we will discover debatable points we can turn into learning opportunities for our students to participate in. You can do this by presenting alternative interpretations or understandings of the passage you’re studying and assign half the class to support one view and the other half to support the other view. Then give students five to ten minutes to prepare evidence for the view they were assigned and support it—and this is crucial—from information in the passage. Finally ask students to select a partner from the “other” group and participate in a mock debate.

These sample ideas are designed to stimulate thinking so we generate ways we can involve students more meaningfully in the Bible passages we study. Using these ideas takes some time and thought on our parts, but they take students much further into the process of learning what a Bible passage means.

How to Contribute to Students’ Engagement in Learning Activities

It’s one thing to plan a learning activity and quite another for students to use it productively. There are two essential outcomes of an effective group-learning activity:

• Students willingly and actively engage in the activity.

• Students learn what the activity was designed to help them learn.

Learning activities function more effectively if we use the following suggestions for designing and implementing effective learning activities.

• Explain why you are using interactive learning exercises. Some students have only experienced the lecture mode of learning and may resist the learning activity as a waste of time. Unfortunately some students’ previous experience with learning activities



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justifies their resistance. Explain the importance of students engaging the material in a more meaningful way than by simply hearing a lecture.

• Create an environment for discussion. Whenever possible, arrange spaces for students to meet in smaller groups before the study session begins. Consider how many groups you’ll need and plan ahead of time where each group will meet.

• Identify the activity’s relevance. Before explaining the mechanics of an activity, explain why you’re using it. How and what does it contribute to learning? What idea, skill, or attitude is it designed to develop? If an exercise comes off as “activity-for-the-sake-of-activity” it can be counterproductive. Students may feel embarrassed to participate in meaningless or silly activities.

• Design the activity for your students. Redesign or eliminate the activity if it is too easy or too difficult for “this” group. Students will dread learning activities if they waste time. To be effective, learning activities should . . .

◊ Stretch but not overwhelm students’ abilities.

◊ Include a clearly defined outcome such as the solution to a problem or answer to a question.

◊ Draw on specific material they are learning in the current session or have learned in previous ones. It should contribute to what you are learning together in your Bible study.

◊ Include debriefing where students receive positive and corrective feedback.

◊ Result in specific, relevant, demonstrative learning.

◊ On more complicated passages, deliver more information so students don’t get frustrated in their search for answers they can’t find, or give them a handout or list of questions that direct them into a discussion of the passage’s meaning and/or its application.



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• Allow enough time to complete the task. People get frustrated when they can’t complete a meaningful task. Allow enough time or simplify the learning activity so students can complete it in the time available. And as you calculate time, make sure there is enough time to debrief the activity.

• Conversely, monitor students’ progress in the activity so can you stop and debrief before it gets boring.

• Clearly link the activity to something students want to learn. Present a problem or ask a question about the topic that is important to students. Then explain how this learning activity will help them find a solution or an answer that is more meaningful to them than one you presented and they wrote down in their notes. The fact that they participated in solving the problem or answering the question gives them more ownership of what they discovered.

• Stay engaged with students. While groups are working together, observe and interact with the groups while they work so you can provide direction or help answer questions. Give brief lectures to the groups in response to the questions they’ve raised in their learning activities. Sometimes these will be questions you hadn’t thought of. They are important because the students generated them.

• It is essential to debrief learning activities. Summarize and interact with students’ ideas, questions, and any erroneous understandings of the ideas they discussed. You can then affirm good ideas and help correct errors.

Principles for Group Discussion

Because small-group discussions may well be the most frequently used learning activity, consider the following suggestions that contribute to their effectiveness.

• Prepare your class to participate in discussion by providing opportunities for them to talk. From the first session, ask students to participate by asking them questions about themselves, their family, their hobbies,



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etc. Allow them to become accustomed to talking by letting them talk about things they are experts in before asking them to talk about what they don’t know well.

• Be intentional about how you form your groups for specific discussions.

◊ Sometimes dividing by male and female is helpful, and sometimes it is counterproductive. Consider your discussion question and form groups accordingly.

◊ Consider how the size of your group intersects with the question under discussion. If the discussion is controversial, an odd number helps the group avoid deadlocking. Some questions are best discussed in groups of two because they foster more transparency and private conversational interaction.

◊ When groups explore more difficult issues, you may want to meet with some students beforehand and coach them to lead the groups during that discussion.

• List principles of conduct for students to follow in the group discussion. For instance:

◊ Carefully listen to what each speaker is saying.

◊ Teach students to use a “completed exchange” when conversations get complicated or heated. One person expresses an idea or opinion, a second person repeats or rephrases the speaker’s point, and the speaker agrees or disagrees with the feedback. Repeat the process until the speaker and group agree on what the speaker means.

◊ Limit individuals’ talking time. No hogging the floor. Speak pointedly to the topic under discussion.

◊ Accept suggestions and disagreements graciously.

◊ Avoid antagonistic questions or defensive responses, and address them if they occur.

◊ No name-calling.



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Ask students to help write these principles of conduct.

Suggestions to help write effective discussion questions:

• Use questions that contribute to active learning. Good discussion questions . . .

◊ Ask something students want and/or need to know the answer to.

◊ Are complex enough to stimulate genuine inquiry and conversation.

◊ Are difficult enough to challenge, and simple enough to answer.

• Use questions that are apt to produce healthy interaction.

◊ Observation questions. Use the “Who, What, Where, When, How, Why” questions from Lesson 2 and Supplemental Material #3 to help students “see” what’s in the passage they’re studying.

◊ Comprehension questions. Help students explore the meaning of concepts they observe. “List some different ways members of your group define somthing.” Or, “How would you explain something to a five-year-old child?”

◊ Comparison/contrast questions. “List as many differences between A and B as you can in three minutes.” Or, “List three facts you see in this passage that help us understand ways A is like B.” Or, “Read the following verses and discuss why you think someone succeeded as a king and why they didn’t.”

◊ Cause/effect questions. “As you reflect on the passage, discuss what led someone to do something.” Or, “Discuss why you think someone didn’t do something.” Or, “What are some reasons someone might actually do something?”


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◊ Application questions. “Define three ways you could apply this truth in your home this week.” Or, “How might a person’s life be different if she did this every day for a week?”

◊ Agree or disagree questions. “Do you agree or disagree that someone should do something?”

• Questions to avoid. Some questions frustrate students because they are dead-end questions.

◊ Vague questions that have no clear answer. “What made Moses effective?” “Why was Pharaoh evil?”

◊ Simple “yes” or “no” questions. “Discuss if Barnabas wanted to include Mark.” “Does this verse teach us to forgive?”

◊ Biased or loaded questions where students know we are looking for a particular answer. “Discuss whether or not Christians should share their faith with unbelievers.”

• Write your questions where students can see them (on a chalkboard, projector, or handout) so they can refer to them during their discussion.

Conclusion

Interactive learning requires more thought and preparation on our parts. But the evidence is overwhelming that students gain more insights when they are involved. Because teaching is about learning, we teach best when students learn best.

each the biblet o how t how to teach the bible …...information so students don’t get frustrated...

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