Comments on: Online Book Discussion: The Law of Education

By: Teaching Tips « Life Together

Teaching Tips « Life Together — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:42:47 +0000

[...] Law of Education [...]

By: The Weekly Thingy « Life Together

The Weekly Thingy « Life Together — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:47:44 +0000

[...] just because I link to it, doesn’t mean I always endorse it. For those participating in the Online Book Discussion, I look forward to seeing you next week, Lord willing, as we might be having our baby! Until [...]

By: Julie Wolf

Julie Wolf — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:14:55 +0000

Jeff and I are both reading this. It is an easy read and contains so much information I find it hard to retain it all! I am thoroughly enjoying it, gaining much knowledge, feeling conviction and being challenged to center my life more on Christ. Onward and upward!

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:10:31 +0000

Here’s one resource I made that helps me prepare for my lesson to be geared toward the learner:

http://www.lagrangebaptist.com/ministries/LIFE/training_notes/LIFE%20Training%20Notes%20-%20Instruction%20Lesson%20Plan.pdf

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:43:30 +0000

One important reminder that has been driven home through reading this book is that I need to focus more on the learning of my class. What is teaching if no one learns anything? Its all too easy to prepare a lesson and teach without any concern for the impact on the learners. I need to focus more on preparing an applicable lesson that forces thought and learning than just some arbitrary measure in my mind of a “good” lesson.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:36:37 +0000

Good thoughts here, Josh. And I appreciate the rest of you who are reading through the book and giving your comments. It really encourages me and keeps me accountable to read and live what I’m reading. My prayer is that we’d all become better teachers by walking through this together.

Josh, in regards to the three points, I think you’re right. They do apply more to a school setting than a church setting. And I suppose this book is written for teachers in all types of ministry settings.

I would agree with you that a lot of our teaching is “unintentional” like you said … it’s the life we live that speaks loud through our words and actions. But I’m realizing that I need to be more intentional about the unintentional if you know what I mean!

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:12:11 +0000

I don’t know that I related as well to this chapter as the other but I have some thoughts nonetheless. I certainly agree with the statement above that I haven’t taught if my students haven’t learned although its sometimes difficult to judge how much they have learned.

I view my role as a teacher more as a facilitator (too passive?) than as a lecturer. I feel it is my responsibility to plan questions that lead the class to think more about the passage both at the surface and deeper implications. I aim to guide the discussion toward a central point and will often interject some significant thoughts that I’ve garnered through a week of studying that may not be seen at the initial glance. I try to have an objective and application and encourage the class to come up with these thoughts on there own. Ideally, I would like to talk less than half the time and only to affirm answers and encourage further thought (this doesn’t usually work out).

That said, I really didn’t connect to his three key points. I see how they apply to a traditional class room teacher more so than I see how they apply to me as an adult Sunday school teacher. I want people to become better learners, thinkers, and workers but I’m not sure how to do that in a 45 minute block of time each week. Hopefully, I’m already doing some of these things unintentionally.

Am I off base here? Am I missing something?