How to inspire something different? I am still uncertain if many local leaders want anything different. Difference requires deviating from the preformatted lesson’s questions and answers, and that risks “off the rail” comments and discussion (as indicated from the article Dave cited).

There is no easy answer. There is no magic pill. The new “Teacher’s Council” will do nothing but reiterate the pattern already firmly established in the culture. All I can do is teach the material in the way that I study and enjoy it. That’s all I will ever do. 90% of the time it’s a hit. 10% of the time I’m a heretic. I can live with that. So far, and luckily, so can most of the bishops (but not all) who have called me as GD teacher.

I think what Kevin and Joshua bring up is a big problem. It’s hard to get far in a lesson if no one has read it or (in many cases) is even familiar with the scriptures in question. It leads to a pretty huge gap in discussion and favors lecture style.

All that said over on lds-phil we were having a similar discussion to here. Many people there were far less cynical than I am and offered lots of good suggestions. My brother who has teaching degree, suggested breaking up into small groups. Quoting him (I’m confident he wouldn’t mind)

[The] biggest change church teacher training teachers could do would be to focus on total time people talk to each other about answers and thoughts. Right now you get some people thinking about each question, but only 8 or so interactions per class (1 one-way interaction every 5 minutes for 40 min.). If you split into small groups (say 6) for just one 10 minute period you’d now up that interaction rate to 18 interactions.

6 x 2 (due to two-way interactions) + 30/5

Add in one question that is a think-pair-share (share your thought with a neighbour and get their response, and the number of interactions jumps up to 80 interactions.

30×2 + 6×2 + 30/5

Thinking about interaction rates is a fundamental aspect of teaching strategies. Of course, structuring interactions to be properly primed and properly integrated into follow-up teacher led debriefs is challenging. But I think we do our students a big dis-service when we don’t facilitate enough opportunities for real edification. The big change online teaching has had on the profession is a wake-up call that face-to-face instruction time must be structured so as to take advantage of it’s niche strengths. This strength is quick response feedback which enables divergence in thought to lead to common understandings.

I objected that I absolutely hate it when teachers do this. (And I really do – both in Sunday School and Priesthood) His rejoinder was:

I’ve found how the question is structured is really key. I usually offer a couple of different approaches groups may want to take on the sub-topic. Then people don’t feel so constrained to the painful ‘share an experience you’ve had of ___ ____.”

If I’m doing break-outs, I also tend to start out with that rather than break up the pace of a class by splitting up part-way through. My key is getting out of teacher-centric mode as quick as possible so as not to bias the interaction with answer constraining dynamics.

I found the group break outs gave me an excellent chance for people to look over the headings of the lessons for a minute or two prior to sharing with others. In exclusive large group sessions people seem to bifurcate around ignoring the manual and listening to the teacher or ignoring the teacher and reading the manual themselves. Neither is very good leverage for face-to-face niche strategies….

The other theoretical thing small groups do, is allow each group to have a conversations at the level of depth most appropriate for them. In practice this means instead of one or two people con tolling the level for the class, you get one or two people controlling the level for each group. Not a perfect solution, but at least it offers the opportunity of meeting more people’s needs (at the risk of excluding those who don’t fit into each group’s specialization). Large groups really do have to shoot for mediocre. Small groups may still produced mediocrity, but it is via pockets of high and low.

But groups aren’t for everyone. Once its routine though, it does make you much more conscious of where to sit…..

How do we avoid a lecture-model if no one comes prepared to learn? I felt that some weeks I wasn’t teaching, I was entertaining. I even joked with the Bishopric that it was part of my role to be somewhat entertaining.

Mortimer, I love all your comments. We don’t have dynamos because we haven’t taught them how to train to become dynamos. Lots of reasons for that, uniformity of curriculum for one which gives SLC the control of the message they so valiantly seek. I think control of the message is an important thing as we are in fact prone to wander, but we need to train folks how to study the Gospel, how to analyze context, and then how to prayerfully apply what they learn. We largely can’t accomplish that in the 3-Hour Block. I was fortunate to have a Dad who taught me a ton.

Everything is relative -there are no “right” or “wrong” answers from the peanut gallery. The teacher asks, “what do you think about x?” Then calls on four different people who each say something unique. The teacher just says, “thank you” after each one. Were they all right? Wait! They were all different. What about that screwball answer? That was surely wrong. Was anyone right? Which was best? Who knows? We all had to be polite and treat each response equally. Time was filled. Did we teach the gospel? Point out the guiding lights and safety zones? Maybe or maybe not. We just took a polite poll.