Teaching needs to change.
I strongly believe that the way we approach teaching / learning must make a major shift. I think the key is involving the learner to actively participate in their own learning. We need to move towards models that include collaboration, interactivity and discovery. The emerging generation is accustom to choosing their own learning path. Scot McKnight recently wrote a blog post on this very subject. Here is a portion if it that really resonated with me.
If you want to read a book that will rock the pastor’s and church’s world, but which is very clear and will make all kinds of suggestions, I recommend Maryellen Weimer: Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice . I have been suggesting for some time that the biggest shift will come in churches when they take education (especially for adults) seriously. We can tweak sermons and Sunday services all we want, but the only real substantive shift will occur when a larger vision for formation and education are shaped by outcomes.
What is most needed is a complete spiritual formation approach to the entire church and for each person; outcomes need to be formulated by the leaders and the church so that the whole approach is embraced. Within the overall approach to realizing outcomes, which I would say are loving God, loving others and a life of holiness, sermons play a role and sometimes an important one. But serious formative changes occur when the individual and the group participate in, activate, and integrate what is being taught. (By the way, that last sentence requires pages of discussion.) And these formative changes take place within a set of outcomes. And, perhaps most importantly, they take place with spiritual directors, pastors, teachers and friends who come alongside to help a person.
I need to get this book! I am interested to hear what you have discovered and are trying in the categories of new ways of teaching.
