KEEPING JESUS IN EVERYTHING: FAITH INTEGRATION IN THE HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM:

Here is the link to the classroom faith integration resources gathered from a variety of sources, including our session

Classroom Faith Integration Ideas

Specific ideas for building faith integration in your classroom and school:

• FAITH INTEGRATION IS: A SCHOOL CULTURE
  • Administrators: Share and champion integration ideas in your building
  • Administrators: Ensure that faith issues are not segmented only for religion classes
  • Disciplined hiring is important for identifying educators who embrace this mindset
  • Teachers: Add a faith element as an expectation for projects
  • Prayer throughout the day and not just at the start of the day, in chapel, or in a religion class
  • Select Bible verses to share with individual lessons
  • Administrators and Teachers: Be prepared for lessons to take longer if faith questions are a part of the activity. Freedom to address the questions and flexibility in changing the timing of a lesson are important to show that these discussions are valued.
  • Administrators and Teachers: Champion the faith integration difference. This is a culture that sets your school apart.
  • Support students who bravely express faith through a variety of curricular activities
• FAITH INTEGRATION IS: AN INDIVIDUAL MINDEST
  • Embrace new learning and sharing of faith integration ideas. An educator and administrator’s personal faith walk in being regular in worship, prayer, and Bible study builds the faith foundation for successful faith integration in a classroom and school.
  • Add this to lesson plans and to-do lists until this becomes a standard part of your teaching
• FAITH INTEGRATION IS: A DAILY TASK
  • What is one way you can incorporate a faith element to a lesson each day? To each lesson?
  • Incorporate elements of Christian apologetics so students are better prepared to engage our world in these essential conversations
  • Regularly share the Law/Gospel dynamic in classroom lessons and management, pointing to the work of Christ for each of us in the process
• FAITH INTEGRATION IS: A PRIVILEGE
  • What a blessing it is to be entrusted with the Gospel in EVERY way through the school day!
  • Lutheran schools have many challenges. Perhaps you regularly feel the tension connected with these challenges. Despite these issues, we all can be intentionally about sharing the joy of proclaiming God’s saving message for us throughout our entire school day.

EXAMPLES OF FAITH ELEMENTS IN STUDENT PROJECTS:

• Is Stem Cell Research Crossing a Line? See the text for slides 27-30 for specific faith integrations. Click here and look at the top of the page for the full project.
• Geniuses, Leaders, and the Mentally Unstable: Scroll to the bottom of this script for a faith statement connected with this project. In addition, slide 10 here adds a Scripture quote to the discussion of this topic.
• The Past, Present, and Future of Parkinson’s Disease Research: Scroll to p. 7 on this script for a specific faith integration element.
• Success vs. Significance: Can They Coexist? — This entire project looks at the challenge of seeking out earthly success and eternal significance, so in that sense the entire project is an exercise of faith integration. For a specific Scripture reference, scroll to the bottom of this document. The full project may be seen by scrolling to the bottom of this page.
• Living Minimally: Check out the spiritual results of this project by scrolling down on this page.

SESSION SLIDES: Faith Integration

CHECKING IN: THE POWER OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS:

Formative assessments typically work best when 2-3 key learning pieces are identified and assessed.

Here is a long list of formative assessment ideas, along with brief descriptions of each idea. Please send additional ideas for this list to Dave Black by clicking here.

• Use a formative assessment with one, some, or all of the students. Some think that formative assessments need to be used with an entire class. An educator can be far more strategic with them. Some students might need more attention at times. Some class periods may only have time for a couple formative checks. One does not have to feel like they have to provide the same quick assessment for all students. This is where one can find ways to honor individual gifts that students have been given by God.
• Impact verses or reading selections — Have students read a section of Scripture, pages in a text, a passage from a book, etc. Then ask them to share a verse or selection that had the most impact for them, and why. One will learn a lot about a student using this format.
• Exit tickets:
  • Can be paper or electronic
  • Quick quiz. Quizzes could be marked in class as a checkpoint or by the teacher. Often 3-5 quick questions work the best.
  • Potential questions: What is the most important thing you learned today? What is one question you have about today’s lesson? What is one new thought you had during today’s lesson?
  • List activities you completed during class time. This is especially useful for projects or classroom work time.
• Use Flipgrid to have students respond to targeted prompts for formative assessments. Students create quick and engaging videos that may be shared with the educator as well as other students.
• Have students create a quick illustration/picture about something that was studied during the class period
• Compare and contrast two or more items using a Venn diagram
• A single math problem at the end of the period may be shared to check for understanding
• Have students build something that shows what they learned (Legos, clay, etc.)
• Ask a quick opinion question and solicit answers through a variety of formats
• Simple classroom coverage and questioning during student work time
• Students list questions in which they are legitimately curious. Questioning like this takes practice, so be sure to include this as a regular learning routine and discipline.
• Create an online discussion using Edmodo, Google Classroom, Schoology, or your school’s learning management system. Use a question prompt and ask for student responses. Practice sound, God-pleasing etiquette when discussing with one another. This is an opportunity to prepare students for the multiple online courses that they are likely to take in their lives.
• Annotation of a section of reading or text. I personally find this to be something that leads to greater faith development when completed with the Bible.
• Use a tool like EDPuzzle to have students watch a short video and then have students answer quick questions or share thoughts through the service.
• Share a list of ideas and have students rank them in the order of importance. This can be done in a written or oral format. Have them defend their choices. If you have an interactive white board you can allow students to physically manipulate the lists.
• 3-2-1 documents — Have students list three things they learned today, two things they found interesting, and one question they still have.
• Use Poll Everywhere to get some quick feedback questions to students through cell phones or other devices.
• Socrative is another service where students may be polled and asked questions about learning in a digital environment.
• Create a team Kahoot challenge using cell phones and other devices. Quizlet is another service that provides many of the same features.
• Give students the opportunity to respond to questions physically, such as with thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs medium, nods and shakes of the head, etc.
• Ask students to share one question they answered through research or had answered during the class.
• Have students use a hand thermometer. Raised high means that they are burning with new learning. Placed in the middle means that they are doing well but that they don’t have full learning yet. Placed low indicates they need re-teaching or assistance. Of course, one must know their students well enough to know whether their responses can be trusted as accurate.
• Have students create a fake Twitter post, summarizing their learning in 140 (or 280) characters or less.
• Two Truths and a Lie: Have students share three items they learned and see whether classmates can identify which where the truths and which item was the lie.
• Use Padlet to collect thoughts and ideas about academic questions.
• Older students may create self-assessment learning blogs and posts. Click here for an example.
• Have students create an audio file to share what they have learned, answer a question, etc. Some students really connect with this method in this era of cell phone usage.
• Challenge students to synthesize their learning by making a prediction — about a science experiment, an election result, the conclusion of a story, etc… The prediction should allow you to make an assessment of learning about the topic.
• Have students explain to you how they know something is true. Then see if there are any misunderstandings in their explanations. This could lead to a strong formative assessment conversation with your student.
• Use an essential question as a formative assessment tool and conversation in the class setting or as an individual conversation.
• Use a small group to assess the understanding of individuals in a different way. This is a great activity while the rest of the class might have work time on an assignment or project.
• Let older students teach younger students about an idea or concept. You will get a great sense of their knowledge and understanding through this process.
• Create a short video or screencast to describe their learning. Screencast-O-Matic is a great free tool for creating these short video clips.
• Allow students to share 2-3 photos with captions about what they have learned.
• Give each student a few sticky notes. Have them respond to learning prompts by placing these on a wall. Students can also review the learning of others this way.
• Create a quick learning survey. Google Forms is a great digital tool to accomplish this.
• Have students create mind maps of what they have learned. See this link for a list of  11 free tools that may be used for this purpose.
• DINNER PARTY: When studying a book, reading, or completing a unit, ask students to name two people they would invite to a dinner party and one question you would ask them. You may even have students predict responses and provide reasons for those responses.

SESSION SLIDES — FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: Formative Assessment 2018

Videos providing formative assessment ideas: