Group presentations

John 6 has several excellent teaching approaches in the manual. Since I wanted to cover at least two of them it seemed an excellent opportunity to try something I had been wanting to do - group presentations. I divided the class in half, even putting them in adjacent rooms. They were given about two thirds of the time to prepare to teach their material to the other group in the remaining third of the lesson. I emphasised the importance of working through the material first themselves - that it was more important to understand the content than to produce frilly materials for presenting it.
Although the idea is for the students to do most of the work, it is not an 'easy' lesson for the teacher as a fair amount of preparation needs to go into this activity. I adapted the lesson plans in the manual into an appropriate skeleton for each of them to use for their presentation. For the group doing the comparison between John 6 and the Exodus I gave them the part filled-in table both on paper and in PowerPoint form and allowed them the use of my laptop for giving their presentation. The group doing the Saviour's discourse on the Bread of Life were given some freshly baked bread to use as an object lesson (for ALL to share) and paper and felt pens to use if they wished. I then had to flit between groups assisting, prompting and chivvying.

So what did  I learn? This was a good activity but the biggest frustration for them and me was lack of time to do it adequately. The class is certainly capable of completing a task like this well and could do a better job if given longer to both prepare and present. I will do this again soon but will give a whole lesson preparation time and another lesson for both presentations.