10.29.10 - Brad Fox in Teaching Methods
We just finished up our 9th class in Rock Sound:Teaching Methods. Our students get two chances to display in class the material they're learning, one of those chances is our Preaching Methods course and the other was this class.
However, the students do not usually look forward to having to teach in front of all their peers and instructors, with everyone evaluating their performance! - who would enjoy that?! Well, honestly… we do. Listening to the student's messages is one of the most rewarding times in the classroom.
Brad has taught this course a few times, and does an excellent job breaking down the teaching model into its parts and helping to answer the question, "Why teach" throughout the entire class. There were many testimonies as to the thankfulness of this course's practicality. In fact we had a majority of students ask to have an additional teaching practicum again in the future - even after graduation if need be.
The consensus was that no where else in their experience have they had the opportunity to preach in a critical environment that is also "safe." Brad had some honest discussion with them, that we as instructors are going to be hard of them because that is the purpose of this environment, however we are completely 100% supportive and "for" them. It was a neat chance to see a loving community of believers share their strengths and weaknesses with one another in a way that fostered mutual growth.
Each student would fill out an evaluation during the teacher's presentation, then afterward we'd go around and share what they did well, and what they need to improve on. Brad made it clear that each time we teach or preach there is always something we can improve on; and its part of the good student's job to give attention to those areas.
I so enjoyed my two weeks with Brad again, traveling up and down the shore to and from class. It had been over a year since I spent time with Brad on Eleuthera, and we had a good time working together again.
