Bible class teachers in churches and ministries struggle to learn whether or not their students are really learning what they need to know in their classes. They can’t give tests, and questions asked in class only give you a partial snapshot of what a handful of your students may have learned. It’s hard to make your Bible lessons more impactful if you don’t know what needs changing or improving.
Reflection activities can give you a lot of the information you need. Done well, a reflection activity engages every student and encourages them to share what knowledge they are actually taking away from a lesson, activity or series of lessons. They can also reveal any misunderstandings or confusion each student still has about what has been taught. Reflection activities can even encourage your Bible students to apply what they have learned or dig a little deeper into scripture.
The reflection activity you choose to use will vary depending upon what types of information you want from your Bible students. If you are finishing up a unit on the life of David, for example, you might ask for each student to create a piece of art that depicts what they have learned during the unit. Then ask your students to explain their finished creations. Activities like this can let you know whether your lessons captured the attention of your students and if you gave them the help they needed moving it to their long term memories.
If, on the other hand, you wanted to find out if they understood the application principles and how to apply them to their lives, you might encourage them to write a children’s picture book or skit that doesn’t mention David, but illustrates one of the lessons God wants us to learn from the life of David and put into practice in our lives today.
Have some big ideas you want all of your Bible students to leave your class knowing? Have them create decorative rocks, bumper stickers or a graffiti wall of what they learned from your classes in words, phrases, images or a couple of sentences. Need to know if your students were paying attention to today’s lesson? Give them each a sticky note and tell them to sum up what they learned in one sentence.
Have you taken your Bible students on a field trip or completed a service project with them? Bring in a fun snack and sit in a circle talking about what happened. Ask questions designed to help them share their observations and what they think they actually learned from the experience. Then encourage them to create something that can be shown to family members that can help them understand the experience, too.
You can find lots of ideas for reflection activities on secular education sites. Most need only minor adaptations to work for your Bible class as well. Just remember, after the reflection activity, you need to spend some time in reflection about what was revealed in your activity. Are your students learning what God wants them to know and apply to their lives? If not, what do you need to change so your students are learning what they need to from your class?