I am happy to welcome Joe Paprocki, author of The Catechist’s Toolbox: How to Thrive As a Religious Education Teacher, as a guest at The Religion Teacher. Joe is celebrating the fifth anniversary of his very popular blog this week! Joe was an inspiration to me in starting The Religion Teacher three years ago, so [...]
One of the best ways to encourage critical thinking is to provide students with the opportunity to have a debate in class. Not all students necessarily know how to hold a class debate so they may need some in-class debate formats to follow along with some time to prepare for the debate. Consider using the [...]
Venn Diagrams are one of the most commonly used graphic organizers. They visually represent the relationship between two items in two (or three or more) intersecting circles. Venn Diagrams are often used in assessment to measure a students ability to show the learning objective “SWBAT compare and contrast.” They are also great tools for reading [...]
Students talking out in class can be one of the most frustrating challenges teachers face on a day to day basis. Whether it is whispering to their neighbors or blurting out questions or comments without a hand raise, talking can be a problem. Usually it is the same students causing the problems day after day [...]
Last week I shared a very important teaching strategy I use at the beginning of class: advance organizers. Today I’d like to share a teachings strategy that I use very often at the end of class: exit cards. One of the quickest and easiest ways to check a student’s progress toward a learning objective is [...]
Many teachers use advance organizers without realizing the power of what they are doing. Many just call them agendas. In The Religion Teacher’s Guide to Lesson Planning, I defined advance organizers as “agendas that give students an idea of what they will be learning that day or during a lecture.” It sounds simple enough, but [...]
Last week on of the founders of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, Dr. Sofia Cavalletti, died peacefully in her home. She and her colleague Gianna Gobbi developed their unique approach to catechesis in the 1950s. In honor of their achievements, I would like to share a few thoughts on this model of catechesis and how [...]
The first weeks of school is the most critical time for establishing effective classroom management for the rest of the year. I’m a big believer in holding off on all significant teaching of course content until some effective classroom management procedures and classroom rules are established and practiced thoroughly. Consider using the following classroom management [...]
I’ve written often on this site and in my eBook about the importance of writing out learning objectives for your students. These learning objectives, or lesson objectives, set a goal for your students to reach during the course of the lesson. It allows you as a teacher to focus only on the teaching strategies and [...]
Teaching about prejudice and racism calls for more than just direct instruction and lecture. Using inductive teaching strategies is crucial to grabbing students’ attention. Some of the most memorable lessons that I have taught incorporated some authentic role-playing on my part. The best example of authentic role-playing by a teachers is featured in the PBS [...]
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