Used from “poortrainer.com”
When I was an education major at Freed-Hardeman University we learned the teaching technique of breaking a class into groups. I enjoyed this method of teaching then and have used it ever since in Bible classes.
How I do it.
I typically divide the class into groups of about 4-6 people. I ask them to select a leader by pointing to a person when I count to three or I assign a leader. I have a prepared handout with the information I want the group to go through which I hand to everyone in the group. I will give them a time expectation and encourage them to balance their time across all the questions. I usually will ask each group leader to share with the class a brief summary the last few minutes of class.
What are the blessings of this approach?
I do it for the following reasons:
- It promotes fellowship.
- It helps the class get to know one another better.
- It develops leadership.
- It allows for discussion by those who do not normally discuss in a larger class setting.
- It forces students to have to think and really consider the topic.
- It allows the teacher to learn from the different perspectives presented.
- It allows more material to be covered with different groups having different topics and then all sharing their summaries.
Evertime I do this, which is typically in my men’s class of 20-30 men, I am jokingly accused of not wanting to teach! While this is not the reason I do it, it does sometimes makes for an easier week for the teacher. But significant preparation should go into the handout. The key is developing good questions (see my post on this topic.) So I primarily use groups about once a quarter, because they help me accomplish my Bible class teaching aims.
What are some ways to use this approach?
- Text Discussion: Assign a group a text or several texts from the Bible and have them discuss its meaning and application. Make sure you have good questions to stimulate their discussion.
- Topic Discussion: Assign a topic to the group with some practical questions. Share Biblical verses that relate for the group to read and consider.
- Problem Solving: Give the group a problem and ask them to come up with Bible verses or principles that should be used to deal with the problem, and require them to come up with an approach to the problem. This technique is effective in leadership classes. Make the group become “elders” or a “committee” who have to deal with a church problem.
- Research: Give the group some information and ask them to study and discuss the information being prepared to share their main findings with the larger group. For example, you can do this with the Roman or Jewish worlds of the New Testament.
- Reconstruct the story: This idea can be challenging and you don’t want to embarrass people, but you can do a group project where each group must reconstruct the story from their memory without using a Bible. I did this one time with the book of Ruth.
- Ministry / Church Ideas: You can use the groups to discuss the ministries and work of the local church. New ideas and ways to revamp existing ministries can come from this approach. This is a good way to find out what people are thinking and ways they want to serve.
- Service Projects: Have a service project that the groups are responsible for completing. We have done this with Magi Boxes from Healing Hands where the class is divided into groups who decide how many boxes they want to do and get the supplies to make the gift boxes.
