You’re overwhelmed. Nothing seems to be working in your classroom. Stress levels rise with each new day. Why won’t these kids listen? Why am I constantly getting blank stares? Why won’t they just sit still and pay attention? I’ll never get all of this information covered today let alone this entire year! Maybe your life…
Teaching Strategies
45 Ways to Celebrate the Year of Faith as a Family
Although we’ve begun a new calendar year, the Year of Faith is still in full swing! Have you given your parents some ideas on how to celebrate the Year of Faith at home with your students? Jennifer from Risen Christ School in Minneapolis shared with me a Year of Faith brochure she created to give…
“Ask Me About” Printable Handout for Parents
This is a guest post by my wife, Jennifer Dees, who currently works for the Alliance for Catholic Education. Jen taught fourth grade in Nashville for four years and since then has helped out with Catechesis of the Good Shepherd at our parish. Like every good parent, when my kids jump into the car after a…
The Chalk Talk Teaching Strategy
One of my favorite teaching strategies is chalk talk. I can’t help but think that the reason I like it so much is the fact that it gets the students thinking rather than talking out. Chalk Talk is simple. The #1 rule is no talking. Students talk with the chalk. Various students are given chalk (markers)…
NCEA 2012 Presentation: 12 Edtech Tools Any Religion Teacher Can Use Effectively
I was so pleased to be speaking at the annual NCEA convention in Boston, MA this year. Thank you to all of you who came to the presentation, listened to some of my tips and shared your own experiences with integrating technology into the religion classroom. As promised, here is the presentation titled, “12 Edtech…
The KWL Chart: A Model for Student Engagement
KWL Charts are one of the most effective and simple teaching strategies that teachers can use to ignite student engagement. In many ways they offer a model or a framework for all other teaching strategies that attempt to get students interested in learning because they prepare to students by building in an element of relevancy…
Joe Paprocki on “Evangelizing Discipline”
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…
How to Hold a Class Debate that Gets Kids Excited
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…
How to Create Blank Venn Diagrams
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…
How do you manage students talking out in class?
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…
