Following Up / How do we Measure Success?
Posted by douglashunter on January 24, 2007
I thought I’d post a quick note to follow up on my first EQ lesson from the Kimball manual. In thinking about this follow up I started looking at an old question with renewed interest. How do you know if a lesson has been successful? Or how does one measure the relative success of a lesson?
I usually just see the number and quality of comments during the lesson and the comments or discussion that goes on after the lesson.
When I presented the self-evaluation there were not a lot of comments, which I expected because I was explaining something new. After the lesson I got three substantial comments, including one brother who spent several minutes talking about various challenges in his life and how he responded to them. I take this as a good sign, at least these men found something of value in the activity I presented.
If I get three or more comments after class (beyond just “thanks” or “good lesson”) and, or there is a discussion that includes a number of the men in the room then I suspect the lesson was a success on some level.
These are not very exacting measurements of lesson quality. So the main thing I take away from my last lesson is that I need to have a more specific idea of what I want the results of the lesson to be. Here is a partial list.
1) That we feel the spirit during the lesson.
2) A good discussion that gets at least half the group participating.
3) 3 or more serious comments after the class.
4) No one falling asleep in their chair.
5) Being able to present some of the material in a new way, provide a new context, or concept for thinking about the material.
It would be great if folks would add their goals / thoughts.
January 24, 2007 at 1:23 pm
I usually teach youth, and with them it is very easy to judge how a lesson went. There are essentially three factors:
1) How powerful was the Spirit (and in reading this everyone has to keep in mind how “intellectual” my teaching style is; in other words, I’m not talking about how emotional the lesson was, but how much the Spirit worked upon the group communally in power)?
2) How many times did you hear “Ohhhh” or “I get it now” or “That’s why…” or “That’s so cool” (sometimes this is non-verbal: you see it light up when they get it–perhaps this is something that happens the most with the dialectical or paradoxical method we’ve discussed on another thread)?
3) How many totally related questions are asked during class (youth, as soon as they feel a powerful Spirit in the classroom, and as soon as they know a teacher won’t avoid their questions to serve some other purpose, will ask questions that strike them much more often than adults will) and how many totally unrelated questions are asked after class (youth, as soon etc., will take the opportunity to ask a question that has been bugging them for however many weeks, days, hours, etc., that they feel no one else will handle directly)?
I guage the “success” of a lesson by these three things. If these are all happening, then we have been gathered together in the bonds of the everlasting covenant, as far as I’m concerned. There has been genuine community and the presence of the Spirit.
Adults are far harder for me to read, and I’m not sure how to guage a successful lesson with them. So I’m interested to hear what others have to say.
January 24, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I guess I typically think Success in an LDS setting means having an impact (in other words, someone changes du to the lesson.) I typically labor over what impact I really want to make based upon the material given, then focus on that impact. Sometimes this goal of impact is measureable, and other times, it is harder (or inappropriate) to follow up on and measure. I guess I feel like people can learn facts better by going to the source material than by coming to my class, and the same with feeling the spirit. That is from God, not me. I feel like I am there to facilitate action and changes. Last year, my goal was to promote the concept of “think before you speak” in one lesson, and it was awesome to have a youth come back a month later and report he’d been working on it, and then to have other kids chime in excitedly that they had to, etc.
Of course, this type of teaching has flaws, as it is based on subjective analyses of the needs of the class made by me, and I could be wrong and often am wrong.
January 25, 2007 at 6:16 am
Sometimes when I teach, there are moments when I really feel that the Spirit is present (oftentimes when someone else is saying something). I think I’ve given good lessons before without that occurring, but that’s always what I strive for, those precious moments when it seems everyone is sort of on the same page and looking at something in a new way that is truly a testimony building and, if ony in a small way, life-changing experience (sorry to sound so cliche). Frankly, like sharing the gospel, I think sometimes the experience is way beyond the control of the teacher, but it is these kind of moments that I’m always striving to facilitate.
January 27, 2007 at 8:58 pm
How do I measure success? I teach the adult class, so one measure of success is a lack of snoring! On a more serious note, I can gauge success by the number of folks who come up to make further comments, engage me in discussion, or continue the discussion with other members of the class after the closing prayer. (I am often the last one straggling into RS as a result.)
I can also tell by how many people are engaged–how many eyes I can see sparkling with attention.
At the end of last year, I felt really wonderful when one of my students told me he’d really come to love studying the OT as a result of participarting in my class. This was especailly sweet because early in the year he’d confessed that he hated slogging through the OT because he thought it was boring.
At the risk of being perceived as being conceited, I will say that I know that I am a good teacher. With as much practice as I’ve had, I certainly shoud be at least competent! However, I also know that this brother felt so enlightened because of the workings of the Spirit amid the synergy of the group.
I have also received a few handwritten notes and emails, thanking me for preparing and teaching with the Spirit. I am grateful for the feedback- it only serves to make me work harder to prepare lessons that interest, engage, then spiritually lift my students.
January 28, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Douglas, this is an important question. I would like to highlight something Debra Riddel wrote: “At the end of last year, I felt really wonderful when one of my students told me he’d really come to love studying the OT as a result of participarting in my class. This was especailly sweet because early in the year he’d confessed that he hated slogging through the OT because he thought it was boring.”
The ultimate purpose of the Church is to bring souls to Christ, so we have to ask how our goals fit with that one. Good discussions, alert students, compliments after class, even the presence of the Spirit in the classroom do not necessarily bring people to Christ. As a teacher, we will never know whether our efforts actually helped someone draw nearer to Christ, so we look for clues–or indicators–that a person’s relationship with the Saviour is being strenghtened.
The single best indicator, in my mind, is whether the student is studying his scriptures.
January 29, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Amen to Brian. Amen, amen, amen! The most profound thing I have ever heard a stake president say: “It is very easy to find out in thirty seconds how someone is doing spiritually when he/she comes to an interview. All I have to do is ask what she/he has been studying in the scriptures lately and then observe the response.” The same probably holds on how the class is doing.
January 30, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Brian writes: “The single best indicator, in my mind, is whether the student is studying his scriptures.”
So does this inform your teaching? do you structure lessons to include reading of scripture in class and to encourage reading outside of class? When I was teaching Gospel Essentials I dedicated significant class time to reading scriptures because for people new to the faith and new to Christianity I didn’t think the lessons had much meaning if they were not directed towards scripture. I suppose that one could make the argument that this is true of any class.
January 30, 2007 at 4:48 pm
I imagine that it’s worth doing an entire thread on the question of “how to use scripture” in a not scripturally based lesson (a RS/EQ lesson, a youth lesson, a primary lesson, etc.), as well as an entire thread on how to “read scriptures” in class either way. These are vital questions and make a great difference in how one teaches, I think.
January 30, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Douglas: “do you structure lessons to include reading of scripture in class…”
I almost never use any non-scripture “helps” in my classroom. (I put “helps” in quotes because I usually regard such things as distractions.) That was a little different when I taught Gospel Essentials, because then I also felt it important to introduce new members to the concept of living prophets (as well as their names, etc). I will use concordances, maps and the like to help to understand the scriptures—but again, it’s all focused on the scriptures.
“…and to encourage reading outside of class?”
That’s my hope. I’m very grateful for the compliments and encouragement people in my ward give me (I truly feel “sustained”), but the greatest compliment I ever get sounds like this: “I never used to study the OT, but now my wife and I study the lesson together every week.” That’s gold.
“When I was teaching Gospel Essentials I dedicated significant class time to reading scriptures because for people new to the faith and new to Christianity I didn’t think the lessons had much meaning if they were not directed towards scripture.”
Amen.
“I suppose that one could make the argument that this is true of any class.”
I agree (which is part of the reason I have such an unbearably difficult time teaching the PH/RS lessons).
Just to balance this out—I know that it is possible to study the scriptures without gaining anything spiritually. A purely scholarly approach would do this. It’s also possible to go overboard, spending too much time studying at the expense of things more important. But I think these extremes are rare.
January 30, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Joe: “…how to “read scriptures” in class…”
I’m interested.