You want your students to better apply a Biblical perspective. You think parents can help.

Question: What 3 ways will you involve parents?

 

Here are sample ways to involve parents:

• Invite parents to pray for their child.
• Invite parents to come to class to share how they apply a Biblical perspective.
• Encourage parents to ask their child questions like “What’s the Bible say about that?”

Question: What other ways can you involve parents?

 

Target Biblical perspective. Involve parents. Today.

You’re working on a vital project. You need help. Which 3 of the following would you most likely do?

• Reflect on what you know.
• Talk with colleagues.
• Read books and magazines.
• Get coaching.
• Check the Internet.
• Get help from a consultant.
• Look at relevant files on your computer.

Have you identified the 3 things you’d most likely do? Good.

 

Question: What key option is missing in the above list?

 

Need some hints? It doesn’t cost money. It’s available 24/7. You can use it anywhere. It gets results.

 

Answer: Asking God for help. God knows everything and wants to help you. So, ask Him for help. Today.

You developed a mission statement. You feel good about it. It reflects how God has been leading you.

Question: Now what?

 

Answer: Focus on getting your mission done by focusing on closing the gap. How? By doing 4 things:

• Defining what it takes to achieve your mission in terms of measurable goals.
• Measuring current mission achievement. How? By measuring progress on your goals.
• Closing the gap between current and targeted levels of mission achievement.
• Staying focused on closing the gap.

Consider 5 questions:

1. What’s your mission?
2. What’s it take to achieve your mission?
3. What’s already been accomplished?
4. What are your options for closing the gap?
5. What will you do to close the gap?

Focus on closing the gap. Today.

Want to empower people? Want to develop leaders? Want to help others become better problem solvers and solve their problems? If so, try this one thing. It’s free. You can do it anywhere. And those you talk with like it.

What is it? It’s the 80/20 Rule. The 80/20 Rule says that in each conversation, you should listen 80% of the time and talk 20% of the time.

 

Question: How often do you talk 20% of the time?

• Consistently?
• Usually?
• Sometimes?
• Rarely?

Make sure you consistently follow the 80/20 Rule. To do this, you’re going to have to keep the other person talking. What I do to keep others talking (so I can listen) is make inviting statements (Tell me more about that.) and ask open-ended questions like “What’s a key challenge you’re facing?”

 

Question: What action steps will you take to ensure that you consistently talk a maximum of 20% of the time?

Your sophomores are writing essays. You want them to use effective thesis statements. You want them to effectively include Biblical perspective in their thesis statements.

Question: How can you help your students effectively include Biblical perspective in their thesis statements?

 

Answer: By having them reflect.

 

Question: How can you do this?

 

Answer: By having your students ask each other questions:

• What’s your thesis statement?
• Where did you include Biblical perspective in your thesis statement?
• What do you like/dislike about the Biblical perspective component of your thesis statement?
• On a scale of 1-5 (5 being high), how effective is the Biblical perspective component of your thesis statement?
• What question do you want to ask ____ (teacher’s name) about this?

Help your students effectively include Biblical perspective in their thesis statements. Have your students ask each other questions. Today.

Here’s a set of DRAW questions you can use for a discussion of “How can you use assessment to help your students better apply creation-fall-redemption-restoration?”

 

Define: Get the facts defined.

1. Which parts of creation-fall-redemption-restoration do you tend to assess?
2. What are your student learning results?

Respond: Get the facts responded to in terms of feelings/experiences.

What excites/concerns you about assessing student application of creation-fall-redemption-restoration?

 

Analyze: Get the facts, feelings, and experiences analyzed.

1. How does assessment impact student learning?
2. How does assessment impact student application of creation-fall-redemption-restoration?
3. How does assessment of student application of creation-fall-redemption-restoration impact your teaching?
4. What helps you assess student application of creation-fall-redemption-restoration? What hinders you?

What’s next?: Get next steps considered.

1. How can you use assessment to help your students better apply creation-fall-redemption-restoration?
2. What will you do?

Here’s a set of DRAW questions you can use for a discussion of “How can you help your students see the importance of Biblical perspective?”

Define: Get the facts defined.

In your last unit or during the last week of instruction in 1 class, what was the fraction?

1. # of lessons in which you taught a Biblical perspective of course content / total # of lessons
2. # of class minutes students learned about Biblical perspective of course content / total # of class minutes
3. # of Biblical perspective assessments / total # of assessments (including homework, in-class assignments, quizzes, and tests)

Respond: Get the facts responded to in terms of feelings/experiences.

1. What excites/frustrates your students about Biblical perspective?
2. What excites/frustrates you about how your students see Biblical perspective?
3. What excites/frustrates you about teaching from a Biblical perspective?

Analyze: Get the facts, feelings, and experiences analyzed.

1. What helps your students see the importance of Biblical perspective? What hinders?
2. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being high), what value do your students think you put on connecting what they study and what the Bible teaches?
3. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being high), what value do your students put on connecting what they study and what the Bible teaches?
4. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being high), what value do you want your students to put on connecting what they study and what the Bible teaches?

What’s next?: Get next steps considered.

1. To get your students to see the importance of Biblical perspective, what do you need to keep doing? start doing? stop doing?
2. What will you do?

We all want to accomplish our goals. To accomplish our goals, we need to take action steps. I’ve found that the SMARTer the action step, the more likely I am to accomplish it. A SMART action steps is:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Timebound

“Get in shape” is not a SMART action step, and it’s actually not that easy to accomplish. “Walk for 30 minutes 3 times per week for 1 month” is a SMART action step, and it’s actually easier to accomplish than “Get in shape.”

 

Question: How often do you empower others to develop SMART action steps for each of their goals?

• Consistently?
• Usually?
• Sometimes?
• Rarely?

Make sure you consistently empower others to develop SMART actions steps for each of their goals. If the person you’re talking to develops general action steps, help them SMARTen them up by asking questions like:

• Specific: What do you mean by ___?
• Measurable: How will you know when you’ve achieved your action step?
• Attainable: How doable is this?
• Relevant: How will this action step help you achieve your goal?
• Timebound: When will you do this?

Question: What action steps will you take to ensure that you consistently empower others to develop SMART action steps for each of their goals?

Here’s a set of DRAW questions you can use for a discussion of “How can you give your students more practice?”

Define: Get the facts defined.

In the last week or unit, how many times did you ask your students to connect what they study and what the Bible teaches?

 

Respond: Get the facts responded to in terms of feelings/experiences.

1. What’s satisfying/unsatisfying about having your students connect what they study and what the Bible teaches? about the amount of practice you give your students in connecting what they study and what the Bible teaches?
2. How do your students feel about connecting what they study and what the Bible teaches? about the amount of practice you give them in connecting what they study and what the Bible teaches?

Analyze: Get the facts, feelings, and experiences analyzed.

1. How does practice/repetition impact learning?
2. What might happen if you increased the amount of practice you give students in connecting what they study and what the Bible teaches?

What’s next?: Get next steps considered.

1. What can you do to increase the amount of practice you give students in connecting what they study and what the Bible teaches?
2. What will you do?

What gets focused on gets done. So, if you want to improve your organization, make sure your staff is focused on organizational improvement.

Question: How focused is your staff on organizational improvement?

 

To get an idea of how focused your staff is on organizational improvement, take the following assessment. Rate each item, using the following scale:

4: Consistently • 3: Usually • 2: Sometimes • 1: Rarely

• Staff talk about organizational improvement.
• Staff make proposals regarding organizational improvement.
• Staff work on organizational improvement.
• Staff hold each other accountable for organizational improvement.
• Staff are disappointed when improvement goals are not reached.
• Staff focus on organizational improvement.

3 questions:

1. How focused do you want your staff to be on organizational improvement?
2. How can you increase staff focus on organizational improvement?
3. What are you going to do?

Bottom line: Pursue excellence. Focus staff on organizational improvement. Today.