Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Creative Approaches to Teaching (Part 1)

The Acappella Company has come up with a great combination of an album with Bible studies to go along with the songs. See Keith Lancaster's blog for discussion and here for the lessons. I think this is a really neat concept and would like to see more ways this could be used to reach people.

Most people teach the way they learn but there are so many different learning styles it is important to try a variety of things to speak people's learning language. We also tend to teach the way we were taught and that is normally through lecture. That just doesn't speak to everyone in the room any more. The next several posts will be devoted to improving our teaching techniques. What are some creative approaches you have tried or experienced?

6 comments:

Adam Gonnerman said...

I've been learning the power of narration and storytelling, but I have a long way to go.

Paula Harrington said...

I learned a lot from Kim Daily from sundayschoolsources.com Now I always try to incorporate many aspects into teaching Bible class. Of course this is for a kid's class.

Matt said...

Thanks Paula. Another good one for kids is www.rotation.org

It is called workshop rotation and involves having Sunday Bible classes for kids like a VBS. It is really a great idea as teachers can really focus on just preparing their part as the kids rotate through.

Neva said...

Humor helps. Having worked in a psych ward, doing group therapy, humor seemed to get attention and keep it. (Not making any correlation between psych patients and church members) I find I am more apt to listen when there is some appropriate humor.

I also like participant visuals, something they can hold, see, touch, taste, etc.
Peace
Neva
Oh, and I pray alot before I teach. :)

Steve Puckett said...

Thanks for the resource. Good idea. I am always struggling with trying to tap into the best way to get the message across to the most people.

Bruce Wilkinson used to have some good ideas on teaching and applying the word in a unique format, but I haven't been able to put my hands on my notes from his discussion that I attended years ago.

I often used video clips from sermonspice.com and bluefishtv.com.

Peace.

Frank Bellizzi said...

This is such an important question, Matt. I have read and blogged about the book by Thom and Joani Schultz, "Why Nobody Learns Much of Anything at Church: And How to Fix It." The book reveals our tired, ineffective traditional methods for what they are; and it offers a ton of insight and advice about how to change. I highly recommend it. A lot of preachers need to read the chapter, "Renovate the Sermon."

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