Good teachers teach in similar ways. One of the patterns of good teachers is how they prepare to teach — how they prepare to engage students. Ken Bain, in What the Best College Teachers Do, writes about the questions these kinds of teachers are asking themselves when they prepare. We looked at #1-6, and today we look at #7-13.
A question for pastors today: Do you ask any of these in your sermon preparation?
7. How do we discover what our students know already and expect and how do we reconcile our differences?
8. How do we help students “learn to learn”? To assess themselves?
9. How can we learn what they are learning, give feedback, before we assess/grade our students?
10. How do we communicate with students in a way that will keep them learning and thinking?
11. How do we spell out our discipline’s professional standards? Why do we use these standards? How do we help students assess their own work in light of these standards?
12. How will we and the students best understand the nature, progress, and quality of their learning?
13. How can we create a natural critical learning environment?
He concludes this chp by showing how two teachers created big assignments, a “doing” assignment, that shaped the entire class so that knowledge and skills were constantly at work with one another.