4 Targets to Hit Every Time You Teach
When you are with students during your teaching time you never know what you are going to get.
And yet …
Every time you teach you have the opportunity to bring students closer to God through scripture, story, and relationship.
And here lies the tension. How can you consistently teach students for life change?
Very simply you need to show up, be prepared, and be consistent. Knowing where you are headed at each point in the lesson will help. When you prepare, consider these four targets. These targets will create a structure to your lesson, eliminate unnecessary distractions, and keep you progressing toward your teaching objective.
Here are your targets.
Connect. The purpose of this first step is to connect students to the leader, the group, and the theme. This step is the most important target in your lesson. The goal is to connect with every student, every time. When you connect, you have the student’s attention as you transition to studying the text.
Engage. Now that everyone is connected and ready to listen, the next step is to engage students with the text. The goal of this step is to get the student involved with the text. The expectations for engagement are more than just sit and listen. Use a variety of teaching methods in order to keep students engaged.
Respond. This is a call to action. In every lesson, you want to give students the opportunity to respond by taking what they have learned and apply it in their experience. You want the lesson to move from the classroom into culture. Creating experiences that will encourage students to take action will give you the opportunity to see them grow spiritually.
Transitions. Transitions create a seamless lesson. Good transitions may be the most overlooked step when preparing a lesson. A lesson without transitions will seem unorganized and off the point giving room for distractions. If you are serious about the art of teaching, then transitions will help you level up your skill.
So, these are your targets. Over the next weeks, we will help process these targets through our content.
For clarification, these targets are primarily for a small group format but each of the steps has merit even for large group teaching. For a FREE sample of our curriculum process click the link below.