Mormon Share > Determining student level of understanding
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Jennifer Smith
February 12, 2016
This information was originally published at http://kenalford.com/semlist/2002/02feb02.htm and sent out as part of Ken Alford’s email list to Seminary teachers. Scripture Mastery Devotional Preparation Activity Day This idea is similar to the idea above, but students are given time to prepare devotionals. If your students are like mine, devotionals are too often done “on the fly”. This activity day gives you and your students the opportunity to “fix it”. To make…
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Jennifer Smith
December 11, 2014
By Susie Waalkes Kershaw Susie Waalkes Kershaw: This group as been such a blessing and help-thank you so much to all that share ideas, encouragement, and insights. I thought I would share how our class is doing the “what stuck with you” idea. We have our own “sacred grove” and every Friday they add a leaf on what they learned that week. 53(3 hours ago) Jeanette Brooks: We do the…
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Jennifer Smith
September 15, 2014
Courtesy of John Bushman: As a coordinator for S&I, it has not been my style to be very controlling. It has been my goal to give great tips and helps, but in the end, the teachers decide what works for them or not. BUT… now I want to mandate something because it can be so VERY helpful to the teacher and the students. With the teachers I coordinate, I want…
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Jennifer Smith
February 22, 2013
Last week we were doing housekeeping things during class and did not get to cover the stories that students were reading in as much depth as I would prefer. I used this method to quickly cover 4 chapters students had read before class, as an introduction to the next chapters in Acts. RULES: Each zone gets two identical sets of word strips, one for the zone leader, and a second…
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Jennifer Smith
February 22, 2013
If you’ve got a lot of material to cover in a short amount of time, you can cover the material more efficiently when you know what students already know about the topic. One way to quickly assess student understanding of series of events is to give them strips of paper with the main events summarized as a list. Have the class work in groups and race to sort the events…
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Jennifer Smith
February 16, 2013
This idea came from a Pinterest post by Erin Guinup. She didn’t post a link to a website, but posted a picture of her chalkboard from doing this activity that you can see at right. You can see her pin on my Seminary Pinterest page. Basically, you start with a topic. Each student is given a piece of chalk to write on the board their responses to the writing prompt. …
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Jennifer Smith
February 11, 2013
The purpose of this activity is for kids to learn to pick out what is the most important information in a section of scripture and to summarize it. This is a valuable skill to learn for preparing talks or lessons. Hand each student a mini post it note. Have them place the post it note over the chapter header of a certain passage. Give students 3-5 minutes on a timer…
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Jennifer Smith
January 31, 2013
Ah, the dreaded Pop Quiz. There’s a reason that this old-style teaching method hasn’t been thrown out: it’s super effective. This evil-sounding tool can be used by the wise teacher to help cover a lot of material very quickly, review previously studied material, or to determine how well students are understanding material. Plus, it takes very little preparation time by the teacher. Write your questions. Your questions should be of…
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Jennifer Smith
December 31, 2012
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 most important information in the fewest words? Give students a few seconds (I usually do…
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Jennifer Smith
December 31, 2012
Have each student read a scripture on a gospel topic or a keyword written on a wordstrip and then place that wordstrip under the correct header. EXAMPLE: I used this method to teach the plan of salvation. I divided the board into three sections: premortal, mortal, and postmortal. I also stuck Post-it notes with words like fall, creation, resurrection, birth, war in heaven, outer darkness, death, celestial glory, paradise, spirit…
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Jennifer Smith
December 31, 2012
WordStorm is kind of like brainstorming in that you take a topic word and write down the class’ thoughts on the board. Easy Lesson opener. EXAMPLE: I wrote the word “friend” on the board and asked my students to say words that describe a perfect friend. I noted their words on the board. When they slowed, I pointed out that Jesus Christ called some people his friends in the scriptures….
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Jennifer Smith
December 31, 2012
Give students a few minutes to review a passage that is fairly familiar to them. Have them write down something that was “new” at this reading. They may have remembered a detail they forgot or noticed something new. They may have a new understanding of what certain words or phrases mean. The verses may have triggered a new question. If they can’t find something new, I let them share something…
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