Perfecting the Saints — One Lesson at a Time
Throughout the Seminary year — but especially as you approach the end of the year — you may wish to look for ways to introduce (for younger students) or reinforce (for graduating seniors) all 100 Seminary Scripture Mastery (SM) scriptures. Here are a few possible ideas to help you do so: Give students a list of all 100 SM scriptures for them to glue into their scriptures. Have an in-class…
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By Eric Jorgensen Eric Jorgensen: — A daily learning + get-to-know-you activity — I thought I would share a teaching practice that has been working really well for my class this year. I call it the “Daily Do Now and Friday Lottery”. It provides a social learning activity at the start of every class which provides a double incentive to come to seminary on time. (Credit: This idea is a…
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By Scott Knecht It is satisfying at the end of a class to sit back and think how well I covered the material for the students. Teachers love to cover things and to say things like “we covered that really well in class today and the students are all ready for the test.” I think we feel victorious when we can acknowledge that our coverage was great. But here is…
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By Suzi Alkonis Suzi Alkonis : This is a great idea and a great blog: teachtolearn1.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-5-minute-lecture.html?spref=fb 2 (58 minutes ago) http://teachtolearn1.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-5-minute-lecture.html?spref=fb Not everything in a class should be or needs to be student discovery. Sometimes I just need to tell them something but I struggled for a long time to do it effectively and in a timely manner. Then I discovered the beauty of something I came to call The…
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By Scott Knecht One night in graduate school I went to the opening session of a new class. It was a bit of a different schedule – 2 nights a week for 4 hours per night for 4 weeks – so I had to get mentally prepared to endure the length each night. Little did I know the adventure that awaited. The teacher walked in at the appointed hour, called…
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Vanessa S. shared this on the Come Follow Me Facebook Group, and I asked her permission to share it here. She said: “[A]fter some initially rather disastrous experiments having my girls teach, I eventually came around to this handout, which the girls told me has been very helpful. It outlines the steps for preparing a “mini-lesson” from a conference talk excerpt. I have a similar one that focuses on…
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Elder Richard G. Scott taught, “Never, and I mean never, give a lecture where there is no student participation. A ‘talking head’ is the weakest form of classroom instruction.” (Address to CES Religious Educators, February 4, 2005) Lecture has its place in teaching, but teacher presentation or lecture should not be your entire lesson. It should not, in my opinion, make up the majority of your lesson either. I learned…
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The Lord often uses “formulas” to show how to obtain certain blessings or outcomes. Mark these with an equal signs. They signal a plain truth of the gospel. Look For: Look for places where the Lord defines something or ties two or more things together. Words like “is,” “like,” or “in other words” Example: D&C 93:24 Def. of Truth 3 Nephi 11:29 Contention is of the devil. (therefore what does…
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These words say a lot without a lot of letters. And they are meant to draw our attention in a hurry–just like a billboard–and usually there is a message just after them that we were intended to focus on. Look for “Wo”(especially double or triple Wos), “O,” “Thus,” “And Thus we see,” “Behold,” “Nevertheless,” “Therefore,” “Yea”,” “Now,” “Likewise,” “Let us,” “Finally,” etc. Today, we use superlatives such as: “good, better,…
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This is a familiar but underused teaching technique. When you invite students to role play, “The students’ job is to shore up their friend, and they almost always bear testimony in the process — almost without realizing it.” (Becoming a Great Gospel Teacher, Eaton and Beecher, p 91) “We’ve had our students play everything from missionaries to parents of troubled youth to concerned friends. The more realistic the situation, the…
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How does connecting different parts of the story in the same or other chapters help make one scene more powerful and meaningful. Look For: Put parts of a story or teaching together (don’t forget previous and future chapters!) and “look for” connections. Examples >1 Samuel 1 –2 Hannah’s sacrifice of giving up her firstborn Samuel when you connect it with the suffering she went through (v. 6-7). It also makes…
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What are things in the scripture block that you could actually see, touch, smell, visualize?. Picture these in your mind or better find the actually object and see what it teaches you about the way it is used in the verses you are reading. Look For: Look for objects in the scriptures–things that you could see, hold, touch, etc. Example: Isaiah 5:18 describes people that carry their sins like beasts…
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We are moving to http://NoBoringLessons.com/ where you can find Come Follow Me Lesson ideas for the new 2019 curriculum Dismiss