Is our education focused on immediate results rather than long term results? While we may have lofty notions of impacting our students for a life-time of ministry, we most often focus our classroom attention only on immediate results that will be evident at the end of the course or workshop. If we don’t adjust our methodologies and assessments towards longer term learning and implementation, we may risk missing the intended life-time impact on our students.
If we really want to make an impact that lasts longer than our course, we need to focus on methodologies that assist students to integrate new concepts with their present structure of knowledge and experience and project into the future. There is no quick way to do this. Lectures won’t necessarily accomplish such integration. In order for students to integrate new material, they need time to process the new concepts or skills by some creative reflective activity or by means of a group activity that includes analysis or synthesis.
For example, after introducing students to biblical concepts for peacemaking, I can invite them to make a rough evaluation of how well their team or church applies those concepts and then share in their group their evaluation and supporting evidence. This activity facilitates both personal reflection time as well as dialogue within a group. Such integration of new input with previous experience helps to cement the teaching into their thinking for future reference. You can believe that they will not easily participate with their team in the future without recalling their discussion of peacemaking adages.
Our testing at the end of the course or workshop is meant to provide proof that students effectively learned knowledge, skills, or attitudes. This testing is focused solidly on the short term goal for this class. You may already be thinking, “Of course, what do you expect?” But I’d like to challenge us as teachers to actually imagine assessing for long term knowledge and implementation. What would you expect of your students in one year or two or three? What can you imagine them doing with what they learned? How would you assess whether or not they have achieved what you hoped for?
Envision being able to call your class back for a long-term test of what they learned. Imagine that you had the ability in two years to ask each student to write a paper about how they have applied what they learned in your workshop? What if the grades for the test and the paper were to go into the evaluation of your workshop to be read by your supervisor? Now, go back and rethink how you would teach the class if that was really how your students would be assessed. My guess is that you would seriously rethink your methodology and your final assessment.
I’m asking these questions because as Christian teachers we really are called to equip our students for a life-time of ministry. I’ve also seen that it really is possible to teach for long-term results. Not only did Jesus do it through his ministry, but I’ve observed similar results from the use of creative methodologies in teaching. For the sake of the Kingdom, let’s reassess our goals, our methodologies and our assessments for a longer reach into the future.
Picture from 123rf.com
A few weeks ago I neatly packed my granddaughter’s birthday gift into a box and asked my mother-in-law for some brown paper to wrap it in for mailing. The blank look on her face alerted me to the fact that brown paper wrapping was very outdated for posting, and I’ve been in Africa way too long! I resorted to using an up-to-date plastic wrap to wing my gift across the States.
There are a variety of ways to wrap gifts these days. You can give a gift wrapped in glitzy foil paper, and the trendy gift-in-a sack with a matching tag is a quick trick. But when it comes to giving very special gifts, some people are very creative. Just think of the innovative ways men devise to give their loved ones carefully selected engagement rings. A book could be written about creative wrappings and the surprise presentations they’ve made in zoos, beaches, and even the sky. No cost is too great and no humiliation too lowly for that special presentation.
When it comes to teaching, how much thought do we give to presenting our “gift” to our students? Most teachers spend priority time planning the content for presentation. After all that is what we are testing for - did we give the content and did the learner get the content? We may work hard at keeping up with emerging resources and current affairs so that our content is relevant. We’re even careful to get our notes digitized so we don’t lose them and even ensure we have great handouts for our students. But as to our presentation, it is so easy to present brown paper teaching – teaching presented in the way we learned it or the way we’ve been doing it for years. Lecture and teaching from the front are the time-worn favorites, but there are so many more creative methods available for teaching these days.
Using brown paper for mailing packages has been the standard in my life-time until I was introduced to improved modern wrappings. Some teachers have only had lectures as the standard modus operandi for teaching adults. And others have had only occasional exposure to alternative teaching methods, and like me, need someone else to show them some creative effective methods being used today.
Some years ago, I showed up to do a week of teaching for a training school in Malawi. The person leading the school handed me a book and asked me to read it and use some of its ideas during my week of teaching. The tiny booklet was packed with easily applicable methods I could incorporate into my normal teaching routine. I had my content down pat. My outlines were well thought out, organized, and prayed over, but I only knew teaching from the front. After wrestling with my attitude for a day, I finally submitted to the leader’s wishes and incorporated several of Rosalie Pedder’s ideas into my class time. To my surprise, the students loved the new methods.
I distinctly recall assigning small groups to do a Bible study from two different passages in the historical books to excavate the results of leading or not leading in the fear of God. The students enthusiastically reported their findings, and I added a few minor points at the end. When getting feedback later, the students one by one shared with relish their personal discoveries about the fear of God from their Bible study. Not one person mentioned my input! I was delighted to realize the power of enabling learners to discover truth for themselves.
From that day I became an enthusiast for alternative teaching methods. I set off on a safari- search for new strategies and passionately experimented with new methods. I’ve had to find the balance between giving input from the front and using creative strategies for discovery, analysis, synthesis, and integration, but the journey has been worth it. I’m no longer a brown paper teacher. In my teaching I might come close to being more like the ardent young man seeking for the perfect way to present a ring to his intended. Well planned content deserves the right creative wrapping. And my students are worth the time, effort, and cost. What about you?
Proposal picture from 123RF.com
Brown Paper Package from canstockphoto.com
Is our education focused on immediate results rather than long term results? While we may have lofty notions of impacting our students for a life-time of ministry, we most often focus our classroom attention only on immediate results that will be evident at the end of the course or workshop. If we don’t adjust our methodologies and assessments towards longer term learning and implementation, we may risk missing the intended life-time impact on our students. 
