Your Belief System and Your Church (11): Teachers' Three Phases

[Dave Knauss]

Teachers must go through three developmental phases in order to become successful at educating. The first phase is commonly experienced through undergraduate, pre-service teaching, and the first few years of professional employment. The second phase may happen around the five-year point, and the third phase should be continuous thereafter throughout one’s entire career. The act of teaching is not optimally successful unless the third phase is reached and maintained through continuous expanding of one’s knowledge base and teaching skills.

THREE PHASES. (1) A beginning teacher first focuses totally on personal self, “Will I get through this class?” They are usually “shaking in their boots” as they ask themselves this question. (2) A developing teacher focuses on the material and content, “Did I cover all the lesson?” At the close of a lesson, they tend to experience regrets for having missed a part or for having realized they could have said something better. (3) An expert teacher, having mastered self and the content, focuses instead on his/her students’ quality of learning and immediately knows how to remediate as needed. An expert teacher continuously thinks during the act of teaching, “Have my students shown me they learned the skill(s) and at what level of competence? Is this an acceptable demonstration of excellence?”

SELF REFLECTION. Anyone involved in any kind of teaching situation must ask him/herself several questions, “At which phase do I teach? How do I determine, and am I determining, if my students are learning successfully?”

Pastor, at which of the three developmental phases are you with your sermons? Have you gotten beyond phase two? How about phase three—Does your preaching focus on your members’ learning? Do you recognize deficiencies and know immediately how to remediate effectively?

Your Belief System and Your Church: (1) Introduction

Your Belief System and Your Church: (2) Your Paradigms

Your Belief System and Your Church: (3) Bondage or Freedom

Your Belief System and Your Church: (4) Gateway Skills

Your Belief System and Your Church: (5) Teacher Accountability

Your Belief System and Your Church: (6) Talking About vs. Doing

Your Belief System and Your Church: (7) Student Accountability

Your Belief System and Your Church: (8) Assessment

Your Belief System and Your Church: (9) Bury Dead Tradition

Your Belief System and Your Church: (10) Teaching vs. Learning

Your Belief System and Your Church: (11) Teachers' Three Phases

Your Belief System and Your Church: (12) Excellence is NOT a Goal

Your Belief System and Your Church: (13) My Teaching Limits Were Their Learning Limits

Your Belief System and Your Church: (14) Unlearning Creates Success

Your Belief System and Your Church: (15) Pioneers vs. Settlers

Your Belief System and Your Church: (16) Real and Lasting Learning

Your Belief System and Your Church: (17) Problems With Memory

Your Belief System and Your Church: (18) Ownership Creates Success

Your Belief System and Your Church: (19) Not Perfect, But Honest

Your Belief System and Your Church: (20) Take Risks and Give Away Control

Your Belief System and Your Church: (21) Out of a Job

Your Belief System and Your Church: (22) KCAASE and Proverbs 24

Your Belief System and Your Church: (23) Responding vs. Reacting

Your Belief System and Your Church: (24) Only When Performed

Your Belief System and Your Church: (25) A Supervisor's Vision

Your Belief System and Your Church: (26) Glimpses Into the Spiritual

Your Belief System and Your Church: (27) One Reason Alone

[Lisa]

Oh and Pastor we understand if you are only on phase one or two. Then again I would hope that those of you who have been doing this for a decade or more are in two and heading for three. So just how do we expect a pew full of baby blues, browns and hazels to show us that they are indeed learning and not just sleeping with their eyes open?

[Dave Knauss]

Lisa,
The short answer is, encapsulate each sermon point into a "doing" activity, and consciously teach everyone HOW TO DO it. You'll see, right on the spot, who's got it and who doesn't.
Dave

[Lisa]

So would the doing activity be just having them answer some questions? Would it be having someone who does not usually pray, is not in leadership, and is comfortable enough to try demonstrate a sermon point. For example a prayer of thankfulness in the midst of difficulty.

OH and then we have the technique used so well during Christ Encounter weekend. Tell the students what you expect (in this case audible prayer) start it off, then shut up and wait until they do it. No one moves on until someone steps out. The silence will stretch seemingly forever with some groups but someone always comes through.
Hey,
Dave thanks for reminding me of what I know. Hope this helps pastors also.
Lisa

[Dave Knauss]

I believe you have answered your own question. There will always be the person(s) who leads out first, while there are others who come in next, and finally those who wait till the very end. After a period of time doing this procedure, the wait time becomes less and less until it finally disappears altogether when everyone is very comfortable with jumping right in.