Imagine that you recorded one of the recent Bible lessons you taught. You pressed "Record" when the first student arrived and "Stop" when the last one went out the door. Now, play that tape back in your mind. What do you hear?
Do you hear mostly your own voice? Giving instructions. Reading from the Bible. Asking questions. Leading the students in prayer. Do you hear mostly voices of the students? Answering questions or asking questions of their own. Reading. Singing. Praying. Talking to each other. Do you hear silence? Do you hear chaos?
What should you hear? How would an excellent lesson sound? Many years ago, Rev. Locke E. Bowman, Jr., a gifted Christian educator and president of the National Teacher Education Project, taught me to be aware of the Teacher Talk to Student Talk Ratio.
It's a simple calculation. Divide the amount of time during which the teacher talks by the amount of time students are talking. If the teacher talks for 45 minutes and the students talk for 15 minutes the TT/ST ratio is 3. If the amounts are equal, the ratio is 1.
What does the TT/ST ratio in your lessons tell you? Would you rather it be high, more teacher than student? Low? Why?
I invite you to ponder this one for a few days! I promise to return to this topic next week with some further thoughts of my own.
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